


Book of Retribution

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Kingdom Hearts, Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Child Neglect, Crossover, Emotions, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 03:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 85,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: Orders are orders. When the Superior wanted information on a new world, that information was gathered. No questions asked. They had never had any difficulty with recon before, had never so much as overlooked one crack in the pavement. This, though? This was different.Some worlds, they would find, were better left unexplored.





	1. Heart's Desire (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Does this fic seem familiar to you? If it does, there's a good reason for it--this is a reupload! Please know that if you were one of the wonderful readers who left a comment or review, I absolutely saved it before I switched accounts. Your feedback means the world to me! If you're new here, hope you enjoy!

It was slowly that he came around, mind wandering to comfortable places as he lazily blinked unconsciousness away. His breath was deep and rhythmic, keeping time with a heartbeat that couldn’t have been his own, but somehow echoed strong and steady in his ears.

Pushing the covers off of himself, he sat up and stretched, strangely cognizant of a great many contradictions. He felt at once more rested and more out of place than ever he had. This room was, and had only ever _been_ , his, yet he’d never so much as stepped foot in it until now. He did not belong here, but he’d never known anywhere else.

The space behind his eyes was numb with denial or something like it, and he reached up to rub it away like a nightmare’s after-image. His legs were unsteady as he swung them over the edge of the bed, bare toes sinking into carpeting as plush as it was white. Reaching out in second nature, he pushed the door open and exited into the hall, noticing nothing amiss until he stood at the edge of the first stair.

All at once, he found his attention riveted by a framed photograph on the wall. He couldn’t remember ever laying eyes on that particular portrait of himself, nor the gilded frame, nor the wallpaper behind it; his breath hitched in his chest, his feet rooted to the ground. Almost without thought, his fingers slowly moved toward the glass, as though touching the image would break the crippling spell of _jamais vu_.

“Ienzo?”

The tips of his fingers froze a bare hair’s width away from the picture frame, though he couldn’t tell if the chill he felt was from the glass or someone walking over his grave. “ _Ienzo_?” came the voice again, as surprising and welcome as the refrain of a favorite song, thought to be long forgotten. “What’s wrong?”

When he turned to look down the staircase, there was nothing that could’ve prepared him for the figure waiting on the landing. His mouth ran dry as he found himself, for the first time in his memory, at a complete and utter loss.

“You can’t be here,” he said, meaning very much for it to come across as a statement, a truth, a definitive and irrefutable _fact_. But the way it hung in the air, reverberating hollowly in the narrow hall, made it sound very much like a plea. “You _can’t_.”

“Oh?” the figure asked—and somewhere in the background, the warm crackle of a needle on vinyl could be heard, acting as punctuation and proof. “And why’s that?”

Nobodies didn’t cry. But Ienzo wasn’t a Nobody.


	2. Sins of the Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Psychiatric hospitals, needles, body horror.

The air was thick and grey with cold, dusty solemnity; it was enough to leave his sinuses feeling coated, heavy, choked. As he walked, sharp, warning pricks of irritation caused his eyes to well up, his throat to tighten. And with senses heightened in the low light of the hall, it was easy to fall prey to unease—the lingering, cloying sort that he hadn’t experienced in a lifetime.

It was maddening, really, devolving so quickly into skittishness and paranoia. He was a paragon of logic, he was a _Founder_ …but countless attempts to draw forth Frozen Pride (frozen _anything_ ) had proven fruitless. For what may well have been the first time since becoming a Nobody, Vexen was struck with the crippling realization he was entirely defenseless.

He had awoken alone, dazed and dizzy and blinded by a single, bare bulb hanging over his head. His mind had recognized the room and its dangers long before his consciousness had fully returned to him, though it wasn’t until the icy gleam of implements had caught his eye that he fully realized where he was.

But he didn’t want to think about the gurney, now, didn’t want to let his mind wander back off to the surgical suite and its array of instruments, honed and thirsty. So he’d acted on adrenaline and the lesser parts of his brain, letting his legs carry him as far from the sterile white room as they could. Yet the hall was confusing, full of corners and caches and doors. So very many _doors_. Each he tried yielded the same result: nothing. Whether they were locked, barricaded, or simply too rusted and decrepit from years of neglect, he couldn’t begin to guess.

From what he could see, the building had lay vacant for some time. At the very edges of the hallway, chips of linoleum suggested the flooring had once been white and pristine; the tiles had long since been stained by years of sickness, bruised with veins of mold, dirt, and stretcher tracks. Many of the walls had rotted out and decomposed, their skeletal beams and grating glaring out like the tines of a ribcage. The comparison was made all the more apt by the quiet, pained wheezing emanating from just beyond them…a draft from outside, he had to figure. He had yet to cross paths with any living thing, and it wasn’t as though buildings could breathe. The overhead lights had burnt or shorted out, leaving him to navigate in near-darkness, but Vexen was no stranger to shadow.

As wary as he was, he found himself wandering back towards the wing from whence he’d fled, eying the large doors cautiously. It was not what he wanted to do, not in the _least_ , but everything else was locked, stuck, and shut off. A placard none too far from the hinges of the door proclaimed “ **Patient Wing, 3F**.” It was innocuous enough, a label such as any other facility of this nature might use, but still…

He narrowed his eyes as he reentered the hall, gritting his jaw as he strode forward. How many times had he walked through corridors just like this? How many times had he passed doors and grates, their contents hidden and unknown, save for the occasional whimper or scream? Again he furrowed his brow. Those thoughts (memories?) had no place here. He had no time for that.

The hall stretched into pitch-blackness, somehow oppressive, somehow leaden. To his left were the patient rooms, lined up and pressed together, compact little prisonic cells. There were doors to his right, doors behind him, doors and doors and _doors_. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was what mice felt like, dropped into a maze and left to scurry until they could find their reward or their end. Not that he was a mouse. Not that this was a test.

His fingers pressed hard against his temples, rubbing away the tense ache and the thoughts’ intrusions. It was sensory deprivation, nothing more, nothing less. In the darkness it was hard to see, in the stillness it was hard to hear, in the cold it was hard to _feel_ , and that led to interruptions in cognition. Anyone worth their salt knew that.

Even so, it was difficult to shake the sensation of being watched. _Studied_.

The lock behind him had no give, nor did the adjacent restroom’s. It was all beginning to feel like a lesson in futility. How could he perform proper reconnaissance on a world where everything was locked off from him? And yet, the perfectionist in him (it was strange, really, how the nagging voice in his head took on Zexion’s clipped tone of voice, when it came to matters such as these) obliged him to continue trying.

Those suites that were open spoke to nothing more than the condition of their earlier inhabitants. Many of the beds were bolted down, the frames fitted with thick, padded restraints. Some had windows, but all were barred or latticed, more than likely a safety precaution. On occasion, he’d pass something of interest: a room full of books from floor to ceiling, huge research texts left open with dog-eared pages and cracked spines (“Nyctophobia is more than a simple fear of the dark. Those suffering this crippling phobia may find that…”); bloody smears on walls, some resembling strange Rorschach patterns that made the space behind his eyes buzz; even a torn and faded doctor’s note, run through with redacting slashes to protect anonymity.

He paused to read over the memo, trying to make sense of the little information it presented. On some level, he had hoped it would provide clarification, perhaps a clue of sorts to help him make sense of where he was. 

“Patient File: 5389-32

Patient Name: **XXX** **XX** z **XX** i **XX**

O **XXX** see **XXX** Physi **XXXX** : A **XXX** son

Date: 6-16

 **XXXXXXXXXXXX** young male in **XXXXX** arly 20s. **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** what he described as “losing time.” Nume **XXXXXXXX** ckouts or fugues **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** soriented and confused **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** quent headache **XXXXX** night terrors.

In our session, **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** hesitant to divulge any info **XXXXXXXXXXX** taining **XXXXXXX** family or personal life, focusing instead on how his symptoms were interfering with his work. **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** ther counseling **XXXXXXXXXXXX** root cause of these issues, but **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** acute anxiety. Recommend **XXX** immediate prescription of **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** ”

He considered the note for some time, having taken to sitting atop the bare and battered mattress of the patient cell. If nothing else (and really, there _was_ nothing else), he had a better idea of the sort of facility he was in. Of course, he’d had his suspicions, given the…less than friendly accommodations, but now there was confirmation. Brow knit, he curiously turned the crumpled page over in his hand, eye caught by something bright.

The message on the opposite side was brief and cryptic, written in something bold and red: _they cannot protect you anymore. i hid the key in 13 just four you. HIDE. the basement means death._

“Fantastic…” Vexen sighed, giving the note one last glance before setting it back onto the bed, straightening back up. “Not the sort I would typically take advice from.” The mention of keys, though…that had piqued his interest. He stepped back out into the corridor, taking note of the room he’d left—S5. The note had mentioned 13, one of the rooms looming at the end of the hall, swallowed up by the hungry and horrible dark.

Tentatively, he crept past the next door. Still wide open from his earlier escape, it illuminated a short stretch of the hall with sickly yellow-white light. Vexen pretended the door was closed, pretended he couldn’t see into the impromptu surgical theater. Unfortunately, his act hardly stopped the tray of instruments from shining in the light, snagging on his periphery with brilliant glimmers of silver and red, filling his chest and gut with thick ropes of spiny thorns. He didn’t release the breath from his lungs until he had passed through the wedge of light the open door cut through the darkness, and even then he couldn’t help but momentarily glance over his shoulder.

A flicker, a buzz, and a _pop!_ The room’s bulb had burst, it seemed, and now he was flying blind. Before he had chance enough to bemoan the situation, a scream rent the silent stillness of the air, bloodcurdling, pained—and _right behind him_.

He all but jumped out of his skin, immediately whirling to face whatever had yelled out. But the darkness was impregnable. One, two, three slow steps backward, arms outstretched and feeling for a threat, ears straining for anything as the last echoes of the shriek died out. “What in the name of—” The scream began again, louder and higher and _closer_ , and this time he didn’t need to be told twice.

Tearing through the darkness of the corridor, it was impossible to tell where doors were, much less where obstacles lay in his path. Once he tripped over something unseen and unknown, miraculously catching himself before his face could slam into the floor’s tiles. Only once the sound of his footfalls began to dull in front of him did he realize he was nearing the end of the hall, but even still he bumped roughly into the wall, sputtering for breath. The acoustics of the corridor surrounded him with a cacophony of footsteps, haggard and jagged and staccato, making it impossible to discern which were echoes and which (if any) were something else entirely.

Swallowing his panic, Vexen reached out to his left, feeling for a handle, a doorknob, _anything_ to suggest a place to hide. His fingers found purchase, but the lock was stuck, unmoving no matter how brutally he jarred it. Quickly, he sidled against the wall, reaching and grasping until he found the next handle. It gave, and he tumbled into the room, closing the door behind him before flattening himself against the nearest corner.

At first it seemed almost as though the room was just as dark as the hall, the dim grey light from the barred window doing little to illuminate the space, but as his eyes began to adjust, he realized how wrong he was. The walls—all of them—were covered in dark ink and thick black wax, shaped in spiraling, uneven writing. Save for the tiny bed, the cell was bare, bringing painful attention to the scrawling messages. Letters had run onto and through one another, becoming impossible to parse, and he couldn’t begin to comprehend the effort and the _time_ that it must’ve taken to fill every spare inch of space.

He backed away, trying to make some sense of the words laid out before him, twisting his head this way and that. What he could read was garbled and nonsensical, made somehow more overwhelming by the few instances of what he could only assume to be the author’s lucidity returning ( _dark dark dark and all i want is my mother where is my mother help me please please its so so dark_ ). His leg came into sudden contact with something solid and he turned, exhaling a frustrated and bemused breath as he realized he’d walked into the bedframe. “At this rate, I’m like to give myself whiplash…” he murmured, brusquely reaching up and rubbing at the back of his neck at the thought. It didn’t help that the hall outside the door had fallen entirely silent once more, no trace of screaming or lurking attackers. He should’ve _known_ he was overreacting. Grumbling, he returned to the issue at hand.

The mattress was stained and bare, and there wasn’t room enough on any of the walls to convey a message as clear as that spoken by the brownish red smears that had sunk irrevocably into the cotton. It lay stripped but for a pillow (flattened and stained an oily yellow) and what appeared to be a child’s stuffed toy. Though it was _hardly_ the strangest thing he’d seen in this place, Vexen was careful in picking up the bear. Its arms hung limply at its sides, its deflated head giving it a disconcertingly walleyed stare, almost as though all of its fluff had been removed. He was surprised to feel the weight of it, though, much heavier than something so small should’ve been. His finger caught on a hastily repaired tear, splitting the poor creature open from throat to groin in an incision that was sickeningly surgical, revealing a large, crumpled mass of paper.

“What’s the purpose of this?” he found himself asking the air, “Why am I even _entertaining_ this madness?” There was, expectedly, no response, but it mattered little. He was helpless as a pebble awash in the tides, compelled by curiosity and whatever strange energy this world possessed. He spread the paper out on the mattress, setting the eviscerated teddy down with more gentleness than perhaps he even recognized.

A key, dull and rusted, lay in the middle of the paper, its teeth worn and dulled. He could feel the tightness in his chest begin to release, could feel the first _real_ stirrings of normalcy rising to the surface. The writing on the paper was familiar—the same cramped and shaky hand that had been scrawled on the other side of the doctor’s memo. _i told you id keep you safe. they cant help you anymore and i wont let them hurt you. wait until there asleep and use the stairs outside. they never lock there exit and you can run run run. stay out of the basement no one ever leaves._

A troubling sentiment, at best. He took the key and rolled it between his fingers for an absent moment, trying to quell the lurking feeling of familiarity brimming just behind his eyes. Somewhere, he wondered if similar exchanges had ever gone on in the Castle. Wondered if keys ever changed hands with worried notes and madmen’s love, trying to save the nameless and faceless from the certain death that waited in the basements.

He _had_ to stop letting his mind wander to that place. He hadn’t thought of it in so long, and yet…

Key in hand, he opened the door, inch by tentative inch. The lights were still out, the stretch of patient wing still enveloped in darkness, but he could make out the faintest sliver of light spilling through from the main hub of the floor. He made his way toward the weak beacon, occasionally (and compulsively) sparing anxious half-looks over his shoulder. But there was no screaming, now, no harried footsteps other than his own. When he pushed through the double doors this time, he felt his resolve begin to return to him. The door immediately in front of him was clearly marked “ **Stairs** ,” but the relief that flooded him when he turned the key and it actually _worked_ was still immense.

The stairwell was claustrophobic and dimly lit, smelling heavily of corroded metal and damp rot…not, he realized, entirely unlike the training grounds after a particularly brutal melee. It was just then, halfway down a distressingly rickety flight of stairs, that Vexen found himself wondering where Lexaeus (and his decidedly useful brawn) was. Or, for that matter—to a _much_ lesser extent—where Zexion was. The strange and unnerving events of the mission had fully occupied his thoughts and attention, but now, in the quiet dark, he began to question his solitude. The three of them had most certainly departed from the Grey Room and Saïx’s stony gaze together, but he’d yet to come across hide or hair of them. Now that he was dwelling on it, neither had he come across the portal they _must’ve_ entered through, the portal they’d need to return to the Castle. There was simply… _nothing_. Nothing but locked doors and the sickeningly sweet scent of antiseptic and formaldehyde.

He reached a landing and was presented a choice—continue down the dark, rusted stairwell, or exit onto the second floor. There was a quiet nagging at the base of his skull, a warning little voice that begged and pleaded to just be _done_ with it all; the exit would be on the first floor, and that meant escape and sanctuary from whatever this dusty tomb of a place had in store…But Vexen was not someone so easily swayed by intuition. Instead, he tested the handle of the door in front of him (the peeling metal façade marked with a large and blocky **2F** that may well have been more blood than paint, given its color), somehow less than relieved when the mechanism clicked and it slowly creaked open.

“Disgusting…” he muttered to himself, wiping flecks of rust and decay from off of his glove. He was no stranger to hospitals (and that was the word he kept using in his head, even if he wasn’t aware of it: _hospital_. Even though the room he’d woken in had spoken volumes to the contrary, though the instruments waiting at his side had hardly been those used for appendectomies or routine health screenings. There was another word he was avoiding, and avoiding like the _plague_ at that, similar but oh so different, where “patient” was near synonymous with “prisoner” or “subject” or “ _victim_ ”), but the state of the place had him decidedly on edge.

The second floor was all but identical to the maze he’d just finished navigating, much to his chagrin. As he stepped through the door, he was greeted almost immediately by a large, imposing set of double doors, hinges rusted black and red. They stood fast when he pulled the handles, and it wasn’t until he had thrown the entirety of his bony weight into the effort that he noticed the keypad just to the left. “ **Patient Wing, 2F** ” the lettering above it read, and he recoiled almost as though he’d been burned. He’d had enough of patient rooms for the day, Vexen thought, enough for a _lifetime_ , really. But the notion was illogical— _ridiculous—_ and he shrugged it off with an impatient wave and a cluck of his tongue.

And then he heard it.

It was muffled at first, weak and distant, as though it was nothing more than an echo, a far-off memory of a sound. Brow furrowed, he leaned in closer, trying to get a clearer idea of what he was hearing. Steadily and slowly it grew louder, somehow intelligent, somehow _familiar_. “Zexion?” he called through the thin sliver of a gap between the doors. “Lexaeus?” He paused, anticipating an answer. Surely it was one of them, equally lost and frustrated with the ghastly silence of this place. Perhaps they’d heard the ruckus from upstairs, the strange disembodied cry of pain and his less-than-heroic escape. It was bizarre that they hadn’t arrived in the same spot, but not unheard of. They would have to be close, wouldn’t they?

A beat of silence, and then footsteps. Good, _good_ , this was excellent—the sooner he could find both of the others, the sooner they could find their way out of here. V and VI were frustrating to associate with on the best of days, nigh impossible on the worst, but the fact remained that they were _unequivocally_ the cleverest and sharpest of the Organization’s ranks. The three of them together were a veritable whirlwind of intellect, and it would be only a matter of minutes before they figured out the simplest and most graceful exit out this damned place. (Failing that, at least Lexaeus would be able to make short work of the building’s plethora of stuck doors.) And though he was loathe to admit it, Vexen knew whatever preposterous feelings of unease he was experiencing were likely to dissolve once he found himself accompanied by a familiar face or two. 

The footsteps became slowly louder, approaching him from the other side of the door; it was then that the first warning bell went off in his mind. How he had missed it before, he couldn’t say, but there was something decidedly off about the stride, something _wrong_. “Are you injured?” he considered calling out, before thinking better of it. The back of his neck and arms had begun breaking out in needle pricks of gooseflesh, somehow burning hot and freezing cold, all at once.

When the sound began again, he wondered how he _ever_ could’ve mistaken it for a voice. It was hollow and papery on top of the shuffled footfalls, reminiscent of the sound of skin sliding on skin. Punctuated with shallow, rattling gasps and heavy wheezes, Vexen began to cautiously back away from the doors as he recognized it for what it was. 

Laughter.

He stepped back until his spine was flush with the door to the stairwell, holding his breath and standing stock-still in hopes of… _what_ , exactly? Whatever was behind those doors _knew_ he was out here, now. All because he’d had to go and call out to it, all because he’d allowed his anxieties to overrule his good judgment, all because…

There was movement. The small, thin windows of the doors were smoky and nearly opaque with age, but he could still make out a shadowy burst of motion. He realized he was holding his breath, lungs beginning to struggle and head starting to spin, but the lesser part of his brain knew stillness and silence were suddenly imperative.

The footsteps ceased, the dark blob of movement stilling. From through the gap in the doors, miniscule as it was, there was a brilliant flash of color. Much as his body had recognized and feared the lobotomy suite before his mind could catch up, Vexen felt his stomach drop. Any last hope of having found his teammates drained from out of him as quickly as the color from his face. Inches away from him, a single, predatory eye cut through the darkness, gleaming golden-orange through decades of dust and fog. Slowly, ever so painfully _slowly,_ he stepped back from the doors. The eye swiveled for a moment, doing its best to peek through its limited scope.

And then it found him. The pupil constricted into a hunter’s harsh slash of recognition.

Vexen prided himself on being a man of logic and empiricism. He scoffed at the mention of such lunacies as precognition and “gut feelings.” Yet somehow, that didn’t stop the sudden and violent rise of bile to his throat as he was struck with a singular, horrendous thought: whatever was looking at him, whatever had just staggered its way toward the sound of his voice, whatever it _was…_ it was not human. Not in the _slightest._

He could smell its putrid, stinking breath through the gap in the doors as it laughed and laughed and _laughed_ , volume increasing all the while until it was all but _screaming_ at him, shrieking like a wounded animal in the night. Vexen found himself wrought to the spot, unable to so much as flinch against the noise, so fixated by the bloodshot eye and its reptilian slit of a pupil.

The thing—the terrible, unspoken and unseen _thing_ —threw itself against the doors. They rattled on their hinges, old and rotten as they were, and just like that, Vexen burst back into life. Suddenly the keypad and its locks seemed terribly flimsy to him, terribly weak. And so he _ran_.

There was a corridor to his left and he jagged, all but _throwing_ himself into the first open door before slamming it shut behind him. He whipped his head around, trying to find something, _anything_ to barricade himself in with. Outside, he could hear the doors to the patient wing continue to rock on their hinges, could hear the creature behind them screaming and laughing. He found a chair to wedge under the doorknob, placing it strategically before throwing strategy to the wind and giving it a solid kick for good measure. With the slapdash lock in place, Vexen found it easier to think, to reason things out, to take mental inventory of his surroundings. 

After a couple deep, steadying breaths, he began creeping his way through the room, walking lightly on his feet to keep from making much noise. Even if the doors gave and he were to find himself not quite so alone in the corridor, there had been other doors lining the hall, hadn’t there? With the lights off, being as silent as he could, he would at least have a _chance_ to—but there it was again. A chance _to what_? Vexen wasn’t a fighter on the best of days. His only offense was his defense, and if he was entirely frank with himself, his defense was currently nonexistent. Another failed attempt to bring forth his shield served as a cruel testament to that fact. The other doors would buy him time, nothing more. Time to sit and wonder what horrific abomination he would have to witness before everything went black.

But he did not like that line of thought, and so he pushed it to the very recesses of his brain, where a profound headache was threatening to take over.

It was difficult to discern the room’s contents, considering the only illumination he had was the dim green glow of a clock face, intermittently blinking 12:00. Still, he didn’t risk searching for a light switch, waiting instead for his eyes to begin to adjust. Before terribly long, blurred and grainy shapes began to take form around him.

“An office?” he muttered, voice barely more than a whisper in the dark. He squinted faintly as he tried to make sense of it—a doctor’s break room, perhaps, a nurse’s station or something of the like. Skirting his way around a crooked table, he began his search for something ( _anything_ ) he could use to defend himself. It was a task made futile by the lack of light and the tautness of his muscles, but necessary.

He opened a cabinet, wincing at the high-pitched squeak it lodged in protest. Patient records, medical order forms, consent and disclosure papers…hardly anything usable. He crept his way over to the next, attempting to act as quickly as possible, while still being thorough. There were no papers, no file folders, but the shadow cast by the cabinet itself made it all but impossible to determine what was within. Against his better judgment, he reached in all the same, trying to navigate by touch.

A deep, eerie hum filled the room, vibrating through the walls, the ceiling, his back molars. Without warning, the lights burst back into life, switch be damned, filling the room immediately with bright, blinding light.

From outside, there was an earsplitting howl. Vexen froze in place, wondering if that meant the creature had finally crashed its way through the doors…but he was met with only silence.

For a moment he simply allowed himself to breathe, trying to loosen the knots in his chest. He was getting too old for this sort of chaos, his nerves were too frayed and worn to handle much more. But there were no footsteps, no laughter or screams, and so he allowed himself to hope that he was alone again, if only for the time being. 

Turning back to the cabinet’s open shelf, he was given another unpleasant shock. In his haste to dissect the room’s contents, he had very nearly jabbed himself with an uncapped syringe. Pulling away with the utmost care, as though he were facing a cobra instead of a needle, Vexen rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sent out a silent curse to whoever had decided to be so sloppy with their supplies. With a more careful grip, he plucked it up, blinking hard at the prim, neat typing across the barrel.

“This…could certainly come in handy.” Full of a newfound caution, he rifled through the drawer, finding not only the syringe’s cap, but also three of its brethren. He tucked them away into one of the pockets of his cloak, chuckling in incredulity.

Finally, some good luck. For him, at least…the needles were distressingly short-ranged, but they would do in a pinch. After all, paralytics left very, _very_ little room for argument.

Shaking his head, he made short work of the rest of the room, finding little more than records and coffee grounds. It was enough, though. It was enough.

Confidence bolstered, he reached for the door, pausing only for an instant. In the dark, he had missed it before, but there was a large dry erase board, blank but for one small square. On the whiteboard, written in the hasty scrawl of someone far too busy to care, was a message: 

_Lisa—In case I forget to tell you, they went and changed the codes to the PWs again. Something about unauthorized personnel finding their way in ~~(out?)~~ …Anyway, 5046 should get you in now! Be careful in M2, though. They just changed some patients’ meds and Zane is not a happy camper._

“We can’t all get what we want, now can we, Zane?” Vexen snickered, beginning to feel more like his old self. It was funny what a few ccs of high-strength muscle relaxant could do for a man’s swagger. It was easy enough to take mental note of the passcode, though, given the familiar array of numbers. He had no desire to venture back into _any_ of the patient wings, but this place seemed to care little for his desires. 

He peered out the door and glanced around the corner, toward the patient wing. The doors had gone convex, warping and straining from the beast’s weight, but they remained firmly shut on their hinges. It seemed unlikely that the Heartless would’ve reached this world, considering its existence had only _just_ been made known to them, but he couldn’t think of anything else that might’ve possessed that sort of power, that sort of _hunger_.

The other doors lining the hall were, unsurprisingly, locked. He managed to push his way into what appeared to be a changing room, full of lockers and dirtied scrubs, but there was little of interest. Now that the lights had come back on, it was easy enough to pick through the room, stopping only long enough to read the memos pinned to the employee corkboard, the amusing notes taped to lockers (his favorite, by far, was the eloquent “ _Hey Brad, saw your schedule, sorry about that, man. Look, just make sure that you know who you’re talking to. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the two of them apart, but you just gotta look for the clues. Ian doesn’t talk a whole lot, and he tends to wander off into La La Land. But he’ll answer to his name if you call him, like some sort of kicked puppy. It’s the OTHER ONE you gotta worry about. You’ll know him because he WATCHES you, doesn’t even look away or blink. Really spooky shit like that. He’s constantly running his mouth, and that smile, man…that SMILE. Don’t get too close if he’s not in restraints. Trust me on that one. Good luck, pal. –Luke_ ”). As if there was _anyone_ who wasn’t easier to deal with, when in restraints. He chuckled again before exiting the locker room.

He stepped into the tight quarters of the stairwell once more, having fully explored what parts of the second floor he could. The first floor door stood ajar, but it worried him little. Ever since the monster’s final howl, things had been quiet. Calm. _Serene_ , almost. Vexen wasn’t in the right frame of mind to question this good fortune, and as he walked out into the main hub of the ground floor, he felt somehow assured he was nearing the end of this trial.

The first floor was set up differently than the upper two: a large square of a corridor with rooms lining the sides and dotting the middle. He stepped out of the stairwell to find the path to his left blocked off by a veritable mountain of abandoned furniture. He clucked his tongue, angling himself to try and spy around it— _through_ it—to no avail. So instead he took the roundabout way, jiggling doorknobs as he went, strangely disconnected from it all.

He was growing rapidly exhausted, he found, as though the air were too thick to walk through, or as if there were some sort of weight on his chest. In a way, he supposed the latter held some truth. Stress, panic, fear…ridiculous bodily responses, but tiring ones as well. He needed to stop and rest, needed to sit down, needed to find the others… 

Turning a corner, his fatigue was forgotten, replaced with something lighter. He had reached the exit.

Without sparing it another thought, he hurried over to the alcove and its blessed red lettered sign, pushing his weight into the door. Nothing. Resolved, he shifted his grip, pulling with all his might. Nothing still.

He struck out, landing the heel of his boot against the door, sending a dull and resounding _bang_ through the hallway. 

“Should’ve _known_ ,” he growled, reaching up and raking his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from out of his eyes. “Is it too much to ask for _one unlatched lock_?!” He seethed, upper lip curled into something unpleasant, shoulders tightly pulled in toward one another.

It must’ve been V and VI— _had to be_ them. Sometimes worlds had strange ways of handling outsiders and intruders. Maybe they had to leave as a unit. That would mean they were still somewhere in the blasted place, hiding from him. There were still stretches of hall he’d yet to explore, rooms that lay shut off and barricaded, and of course the basement ( _the basement means death,_ the note had said; _the basement means death,_ his memories sang). But with no way to access those areas, he was quickly running out of options.

Moping would do him no good. He resumed his investigation of the floor, slowly moving from door to door. “They have to be here,” he muttered to himself, chagrined (but not wholly surprised) by the dampened echo of his own voice. _Be here…be here…here…here…_

“ _Here._ ”

It was too loud to be a reverberation, too harsh to be his own voice, and so his head whipped around, fully expecting someone to be standing just over his shoulder. Something twisted uncomfortably in the empty shell of his rib cage, though, when he was greeted only by another door. “ **EXAMINATION ROOM** ” read the cracked plaque, cobwebs forming where the metal met wood. It was likely just his imagination, but had that final echo resembled the timbre of Zexion’s voice, more than his own?

“Hello?” he called out, wincing at how tight and uncertain his voice sounded as it bounced off of chipped linoleum. _Hello…hello…hello…_

Vexen turned back to the examination room door, eying it warily. The whole situation was a little too familiar for his liking—almost as though his _voice_ wasn’t the only thing echoing. All the same, _something_ wanted him to see that door, be it some unseen specter, or his own unconscious mind; and so he reached out and tried the handle.

When the door swung open as easily as it did, there was a moment of actual disbelief. He braced himself as though expecting impact, so naked and vulnerable without his shield or his chill. There was still an uncomfortable crackle in the back of his head, a low buzzing, like that of whispers just barely out of earshot. His hand found a switch after a moment of hesitant searching, and his relief was tempered with shock when the fluorescents overhead began clicking back to life.

For an instant—a horrible, _terrible_ instant—he was back in the underground labs. The table before him was spattered with something dark and viscous and red, heavy leather restraints torn to hang limply toward the floor as if reaching for escape. He could positively _smell_ fear in the air, all copper and ozone, so thick he felt he might choke on it, _drown_ in it…but then the lights ceased their flickering and the illusion dissolved, as though nothing more than a child’s nightmare, so easily warded off and broken by the light of day.

Had Vexen still been in possession of a heart, he had no doubt it would’ve been thrumming out of his ribcage. He was no stranger to illusions, having been subject and subjected to Zexion’s abilities since what felt to be time immemorial; yet, there was no sign of the Schemer. Worse yet, there was nothing in the room laid out in front of him that could’ve plausibly triggered such an intense and _visceral_ memory.

It was tentatively that he crossed the threshold, unsure whether the sudden wave of unease was due to his surprise, his vulnerability, or some combination therein. This world was as strange as it was familiar, as tense as it was perfectly calm.

Gently, he closed the door behind him, wincing at the squealing creak it made on its hinges as it clicked back into place, distressingly reminiscent of shrieking laughter. He refused to believe that the ringing sound just beyond the walls was actually a scream.

The examination table—the one that had only just served as the centerpiece of his violent hallucination—still held the faintest imprint of a human body in its padding, crushed down from years of use. Along the walls, the cabinet doors hung open and limp, swinging from hinges or lying flat atop the floor. Ransacked, maybe, or simply cleaned out. Either way, there was little of import laid out before him.

As he entertained the thought, he was startled by a quiet, insistent sound.

_Tap, tap, tap._

It wasn’t until he turned toward it that he noticed the other door, hidden half by a privacy screen, half by its camouflaging paint. As he neared it, he noticed it shook just slightly with each echo of the noise.

_Tap, tap, tap._

Was that…was someone _knocking_?

His left hand found one of the syringes hidden away in his pocket, drawing it out. He reached for the doorknob with his other hand, all the while flicking the cap off of the needle with his thumb. “Hello?” he chanced, feeling each little knock reverberate through the metal under his glove. “Is someone there?”

Then, without giving who( _what_ )ever they were time to respond, he flung the door wide, brandishing his makeshift weapon with an embarrassingly loud roar of attack.

The room was empty.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure _what_ he had been expecting. But he still had pride enough to be abashed, scowling as he bent over to locate and replace the needle’s cap. 

He found himself in another lounge, this one decidedly more plush than the one he’d stumbled through on the second floor. A reprieve for the doctors instead of the orderlies, most like. A desk stood just to his right, somehow more grandiose than the others. It had caught his attention, riveted it, and he tried to act as though he didn’t know why.

He walked around the back of the desk, hand absently running along the length of the chair’s arm. He toyed with the notion of sitting, but shook it off. It would feel too eerie, too painfully similar. It took a certain kind of man to sit behind a desk like that, shoulders high, expression regally tempered, eyes knowing and wise. “ _Stop_!” came his own harsh reprimand, smacking the heel of his hand to his head, as though it would help.

He looked back to the desk and was startled to find a neat square of paper set perfectly in the center. It was yellowed and scaled with age, but the ink gleamed wet and fresh, scalloped and curled in a cursive he recognized immediately as Zexion’s.

“ _How does it feel to be on the other side for once_?” it asked, though he could not for the life of him guess what was meant. He lifted the paper, unfolding it without pause, groaning in a tired sort of anguish as the map was revealed.

“Really? _Really_?” he called out to the room, to the Nobody he was _sure_ was lurking just out of view. “You wait until _now_ …” his spite trailed off into mumbles and mutters as he examined the sheet, growling to no one and nothing in particular. 

If this was all some sort of game, he would be having a harsh word or two with the Schemer. He manually flipped the lounge door’s lock from the inside, exiting back into the main hub of the first floor. He was hardly back to square one, but he was still _stuck_ in this maze.

Smoothing the map out against the wall, he willed himself to calm his breathing. This was logistic and straightforward—there _had_ to be another exit; that was simply how buildings were _made_. A cursory glance at the directory did wonders to reaffirm this sudden spark of hope, presenting him with not one, but _two_ possible options. Both the kitchen and the day room had doors that let out to a hidden, southern exit. If he could get into either of those rooms…

But that corridor, too, was barricaded by overturned gurneys and toppled file cabinets, tables that had rotted through to their skeletal frames, bedpans rusting and basting in liquids he cared little to consider. There was no way for him to reach the kitchen, unless…He stared across the hall, as though the intensity of his look could be token enough to gain entry. The map showed that the cafeteria opened right into the kitchen. All he would need to do was get in, even if that meant squeezing his way through a sliver of open door.

“ _Please_ don’t be stuck like all the others…” Vexen muttered, mouth pulled into a tight line against his teeth. “And _please_ be _empty_ …” The cafeteria was only a few strides away, and while it took him only seconds to reach the threshold, he found his hand hovering above the doorknob for much longer.

How had this place turned him into _this_? How had he gone from so disciplined and reasonable to anxious and helpless in such a short stretch of time? He’d been on plenty of recon missions in the past ( _hundreds_ , he was more than willing to wager), and _never_ had he felt himself spiral like this.

Even through the leather of his glove, the doorknob was frigidly cold. He turned it once to the right, then to the left, sighing with the anticlimactic _tick_ of an engaged lock. “Of course,” he said, resisting the sick urge to laugh. “ _Of course_.” Tapping the map, now folded up and fanned against his other hand, he turned to glance over his shoulder.

He could still get to the exit through the day room. He still had a shot.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized the hall had gone distressingly quiet, the strangely (and _impossibly_ ) intelligent ambient noise having died away into nothingness. It was deafening, the silence, crashing over him in tidal waves of oppression and tinnitus. The building wanted him to be alone with this moment, he thought, ignoring the ridiculousness of the idea. It didn’t _want_ him to be distracted, didn’t _want_ him to be afraid. It _wanted_ him to walk up to that door. It _wanted_ him to exhaust his only other means of escape.

But buildings were not sentient, and he was slowly coming to terms with the painful inkling he was beginning to lose his grip on reality.

He squared his shoulders and let out a heavy, determined breath. “The door is unlocked,” he said to himself, narrowing his eyes to frighten off whatever lingering waver remained in his tone. “It is unlocked, I will be able to walk through it, and it will lead me to the exit so that I may remove myself from this _decrepit_ hellhole, once and for all.” His words echoed dismally, each reverberation sounding firmer and more authoritative than the last. With that, he approached the day room door, scowled at its kitschy sign, and forcefully grabbed the handle. “The door,” he repeated sternly, sticking his chin and nose up in a decades-old gesture of surety and superiority, “Is _unlocked_!” Triumphantly, he yanked at the handle with all the force he could muster.

And achieved nothing more than an arthritic _crack_ from the joint of his elbow, sending shooting bolts of pain along the length of his arm. _“Locked! Locked! Locked!”_ his echo mocked cruelly. Shocked, he let out a decidedly undignified yell before he could clap his hand over his mouth. “No…” he groaned, “No, no, no, nononono _no!_ ” Overcome with frustration and adrenaline he lashed out, slamming his fists against the dented metal, only faintly aware of the dull ache beginning in his wrists. “ _This was my way out. This was the_ only _way out!_ ” He slumped to the floor, resigned and nauseous because he knew it wasn’t entirely true—there was still another way into the day room.

He had seen it on the map, though he had tried to pretend he hadn’t. There was another entrance to the room, from the other side.

Inside the patient wing.


	3. How the Mighty Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Silent Hill-based religious overtones, the author's continuously tenuous grasp of The Order.

He was roused by the far-off sounds of screams, muted and dull as though he were hearing them through water. There were warning bells going off in the back of his skull, electric impulses firing throughout his extremities, but he couldn’t _move_. The lighting was dim but sent hot bolts of pain through his eyes when he tried to open them. So he laid there, lungs pressed tight under his own weight, breathing in the ancient dust carpeting the cold marble of the floor.

“ _Aeleus…_ ”

The voice was nothing more than a whisper on the wind, hushed but somehow urgent over the shrill shrieking in the distance. It meant nothing to him anymore—the name—and he doubted very much that it was anything more than the misfiring of his concussed brain.

“ _Aeleus…_ ”

Another bright spark of agony ripped through his head and he screwed his eyes shut against it. He brought his hands to his temples, clutching tightly as though worried he might split down some seam, baring his grit jaw in the pointed snarl of a wounded animal.

“ _AELEUS!”_

His eyes shot open as the memories flooded back to him. The screaming, the resonating pain, the icy floors beneath him… _the labs_. He scrambled, trying and failing to right himself, something leaden keeping him flat on his stomach. From out of the darkness, something cold grabbed hold of him, wrapping itself around his wrist with the sort of strength only terror could grant.

“ _Help. Me._ ” Ienzo’s face was half obscured by shadow but he could see the whites of his eyes, could feel the clamminess of his skin, could _smell_ the thick, viscous blood cutting dark tear tracks down his cheeks. “ _Help me!_ ”

All at once, time warped around him. He reached for Ienzo with the creeping slowness of a nightmare, muscles locked uselessly, the air molasses-thick in his lungs; in the blink of an eye Ienzo was lost to him, his grasp slipping, slipping, _gone_ , and he could hear the awful rustle of his lab coat sliding along the floor as he was dragged further into the darkness, further away from him, toward some unseen and unknown demise…

“ _AELEUS!_ ”

He sat bolt upright, thrumming with furious energy, soaked in cold sweat. The Apprentice’s name was caught in his throat like a dying breath, choking him until he coughed it out. When the blur cleared from his eyes it became immediately apparent that he was _not_ , in fact, in the labs. He felt ridiculous for even _considering_ such a thing—the labs had fallen long ago, had been destroyed more like than not, and Ienzo…well.

Had it been nightmare? Could that be? He couldn’t remember that last time he’d dreamed.

The light that filled the room was soft, filtering down through stained glass panes that had faded with sun. There were no fluorescents, no screams, no cloying smell of blood or terror. But there were pews, and there was silence. A church? The dark corridor had sent them to a _church?_

By the time he had woken up enough to piece it all together, he’d taken to his feet, resting a heavy palm atop a pew for balance. “Zexion?” he called out, the low, thunderous rumble of his voice filling the air and shaking the thin glass in its panes. “Vexen?” The only reply he received was the tremulous tinkling of the windows above. It was hardly disheartening, but certainly perplexing—there was little doubt in his mind that Vexen would wander off and expect him to give chase, but Zexion would’ve hung back and waited. Zexion wouldn’t have _budged_ until he was conscious, of that much he was _certain._ If the two weren’t here alongside him, it meant they had all entered the world at separate points. The phenomenon was rare, but not unheard of, an inconvenience more than anything else.

But his nerves were still thoroughly jangled from the strange dream, the base of his skull still buzzing angrily, and any thought of inconvenience was replaced with low-grade anxiety. The other two could handle themselves, of course, but there was a heaviness to the air around him, a crackling sort of presence that made his skin crawl and mind wander with suspicions of being watched. _He_ was the fighter of their group, the muscle that kept the less savory things at bay, and there was no telling what this world had in store.

“Zexion?” he tried once more, but when his echoes were the sole reply he pushed off from his lean and straightened up. It had been a futile attempt; he had known full well from the moment he sat up that he was alone. It was the sort of sense that developed when one spent their time skulking through shadows, but he found it difficult to drop his guard, all the same.

Behind him, the heavy wooden doors creaked, whistling breathily as they were buffeted by the wind. Lexaeus cast a glance over his shoulder, back toward the spot on the floor where he’d woken, before approaching the exit. As he drew near, he could feel a draft, bitter cold and biting from through the cracks in the doors. He braced himself and threw them open wide, immediately assaulted by blindingly white light and gusts of ice.

Wherever the dark corridor had taken them, it was winter. He squinted his eyes against the brightness of the snow, only just beginning to collect on the roads and rooftops. There was little he could see from inside the building—some shop fronts ahead, a large building just to the right—so intense was the light reflecting off of the snow.

He ducked back into the church and shut the doors behind him, blinking hard against the wavering streaks of color tattooing his retinas. Apparently he’d knocked his head harder than he’d first thought. There was no use in charging out into the world like that, if he wasn’t fully prepared. Secrecy was always their first concern, and a lumbering mountain of a man wandering blindly through town was more than likely to raise a few eyebrows. He would wait until his head cleared and his eyes adjusted, _then_ he would trek out into the street.

Looking back across the rows of seats he grimaced, ears already ringing with his teammates’ admonishments. This _was_ a reconnaissance mission, after all. Might as well do some exploring.

There were no books tucked into the backs of the pews, nor kneelers, nor much of anything else. The wood had taken on the waxy sheen age brought with it, sticky dust covering it like a sheet. Along the outer walls of the nave there were paintings, heavy with reds and blacks, broad brushstrokes seeming to glow in the low light. Something was _wrong,_ here. The Guard in him was driven by instinct, and he knew when to leave well enough alone. He didn’t approach the paintings to get a better look. Neither Zexion nor Vexen would’ve allowed such an oversight, but they both had penchants for the strange and the unnatural, and never quite knew when to retreat.

As he neared the apse, it became clear why he’d felt as though he were being watched. There were eyes _everywhere._

Above him, jutting out from the support beams to hang precariously out over the nave, was a handful of squat, stone gargoyles. In the dim light their eyes gleamed darkly, tiny amethyst chips of ice and fury. Though suspended much too high in the air to get a close look, the beings were uncomfortably human in sculpt, each holding what seemed to be some sort of medieval spear as a soldier might.

That was strange. Gargoyles were used to divert rainwater from the roofs of buildings (as Vexen would point out), or ward off evil spirits from entering (Zexion would interject), there was no _reason_ for them to be indoors. He turned it over in his mind, mulling over the possible explanations, but none quite seemed to fit. They were for intimidation, perhaps…something to keep the followers in line and suitably shaken up.

It still didn’t feel right. He peeled his eyes away from the snarling purple face above him, looking instead to the ceiling itself.

The windows, it seemed, were more than just panes of colorful glass—they were depictions. A man holding a snake above his head, the light shining blue and yellow through the glass; a woman clutching a reed to her chest, glowing green and orange; and then, much higher than the other two, a woman with arms outstretched, clothed in flowing white robes, face obscured by a sun burning strange and red. Their eyes stared down, bearing straight into his chest, settling there like leaden weights. Stained glass was supposed to tell a story, from what he had been taught, a history that was easy to understand by anyone from every walk of life, but this…this did not tell him much.

Zexion and Vexen would be appalled, he was sure.

Where could they _be?_ He reached up to press his fingers against the throbbing ache in his temples, sourly shaking his head as he stepped up to the altar. More like than not, they had already found one another—if they had been separated to begin with—and were making a short job of gathering the information Lord Xemnas had wanted. If they _hadn’t_ found one another…

Lexaeus furrowed his brow as his boot came into contact with something. He bent down, picking the book up delicately. Years of handling ancient tomes in the Castle’s library had made him wary of his heavy fingers. The cover was black and leather-bound, but the symbol embossed in red was one unfamiliar to him. There were too many strange sigils, too many concentric circles, and he felt the angry pulse behind his eyes once more. He flipped it open, leafing through the front matter until tiny, tight type caught his eye.

 _“In the beginning,”_ the book began, _“People had nothing. Their bodies ached and their hearts held nothing but hatred. They fought endlessly but death never came. They despaired, stuck in the eternal quagmire…”_ He shut it again with a dusty thump and set it atop a nearby podium. For a Nobody, it had struck just a little _too_ close to home. If this was their religious text—

The sound was soft and unimportant, but his head whipped to the side. His shoulder braced for the impact of Skysplitter’s weight, fingers taut and itching for the hilt that never came. Scowling, eyes still peeled for movement, he tried again.

Nothing. Had the injury to his head really been so severe? He put the entirety of his concentration into calling forth a weapon— _any_ weapon—but found himself empty-handed time after time. The church was silent again, save for the echoes of his own labored breathing.

Something was _not right_ in this place.

His muscles were still tight, his eyes still scanning, jaw grit in anticipation. It had probably just been the old, swollen wood of the place settling in the heavy winds outside, perhaps a drift of snow falling from the eaves, or—was one of the gargoyles missing?

He released his breath slowly through his nose, running through the past few minutes in his head. Some of the suspensions were old and eroded with time, their monstrous ornaments long gone, but how many _had there been?_ His ears strained against the silence as he searched the floor for rubble, gravel, anything that might suggest one of the things had moved. On some level he knew it was a ridiculous notion, the beasts springing to life from stone, but he was still a Guard deep down, and it was _always_ better to be safe than sorry.

One last time, he attempted to draw forth his tomahawk, and once more he failed. He doubted now that it was something wrong with _him_ , quickly falling prey to the sinking suspicion that the world itself was somehow _blocking_ him. It was a creeping, uncomfortable thought that he didn’t much like. But it becoming more and more believable; when he found he couldn’t so much as shake the ground beneath his feet, Lexaeus was sold on it.

And if _he_ was unable to tap into his abilities…that meant the others were, too.

He had to find them. _Now_.

Without another thought, he rushed back towards the church’s entrance, stirring up clouds of dust in his wake. Again he pushed the doors open, momentarily blinded by the intensity of the light outside, his breath sapped from him by the brutal cold. He had pushed through worse, and he would get through _this_ —or at least he would’ve, had he not heard the weeping.

He hadn’t taken so much as a single step across the threshold of the church before he heard it, the small sound rendering him motionless. It was a child’s cry, he thought at first, tiny and pathetic and weak. But there was a sorrow in it, such a deep, resounding sense of _loss_ that it couldn’t have been.

“Hello?” Lexaeus’s voice rumbled through the building, echoes crashing like waves against the vaulted ceiling. Every fiber of his being told him that he was alone there, among the pews, but now there was reason to be given pause. “ _Hello?”_ he repeated, but still the crying persisted. He shut the doors behind him once more, squaring his shoulders as he trained his ears to the source of the noise. As he passed the spot where he’d woken up, it seemed to grow louder. He passed the very first row of pews and it became louder still.

To his left, an old votive candleholder collected dust in an alcove, its wax and wicks long since dried up and lost to time. From within one of its many brass cups, something stuck up unnaturally. The sound of his footsteps reverberated hollowly over the quiet sound of sobbing as he plucked the object from the cup. Immediately something fell from inside of it, clattering against the votive with a horrible crash. Startled, he reached in with his other hand, delicately removing what had fallen.

 _Baldwin Manor_ , read the miniscule inscription on the old skeleton key. Turning it over in his hand, Lexaeus knit his brow. With his other hand he unfurled the rolled-up piece of paper, weathered yellow and leathery with age. _“If you are not prepared to witness the answer, do not ask the question.”_ The script was strangely familiar, striking a chord somewhere deep in the recesses of his memory, but he couldn’t pinpoint _why_.

Had he found this simply because someone had left it? Or had someone left it _for him to find?_

Behind him, the crying became wailing, became _screaming_ , and instinct took over. The paper fluttered to the floor unimportantly as he began his search anew, turning to the other side of the transept. Instead of finding a matching votive, as one might’ve expected, there was nothing. The hardwood flooring had been torn up or had simply given out, splintered planks opening wide in a dark maw of a chasm.

Lexaeus knew a trap when he saw one. But that pathetic sound was coiling up heavy and tight in his chest, pressing at things that no longer existed. He glared down into the darkness below, having no means of light save for what rays filtered down from above, no means of defense save his own fists—and he jumped. The drop was only several yards deep, if he had to guess, but the shock of the landing still caused a painful jolt vibrating through his legs. For the briefest moment he thought he might lose his balance and collapse to the ground, but his back was caught by an unyielding wall.

A subtle shift to the left found a wall as well. And to the right. Reaching out, he found himself surrounded on all sides, boxed in tightly. As a Guard, he did not often fall prey to petty things like fear, but Lexaeus was suddenly horribly aware of the breath in his chest. In the dark, it was all too easy to feel as though the walls were beginning to squeeze in.

But the noise was close now, having quieted back down to hopeless weeping. It was right in front of him, only inches away, and he could almost _swear_ he felt a ragged breath against his hands.

“Hello?” he tried, softer this time around. “Are you all right?” The sobbing continued, broken every so often by unintelligible babbling that _might_ have been words, had they not been so _fast_. As his eyes began adjusting to the pitch-blackness of the rocky cavern, he realized he was still clutching onto the key from the candleholder. He dropped it into his pocket without another thought. “Are you _all right?_ ” Lexaeus repeated, feeling around his surroundings as the world began to take grainy shape around him.

Then, as though someone was standing face to face with him, “S-stained…by the evils of th-this world…w-we hold our sorrows…with-th-thin us…” Still wracked with tears, the voice was difficult to place or to age or even to gender, so heavily it shook and wavered. It was only then that he saw the grating in the wall, only then that he noticed the hint of movement beyond it.

Was this some sort of confessional booth? Still he could find no door, no seat, nothing but the tiny square screen between them. “Do you need help?” he asked slowly, trying to be understood over their raving. “I don’t know how to get to you—”

“I give t-to you unreservedly, my body and my etern-nal soul. Whatever dar-darkness may befall me, I w-will endure with you bes-side me.”

There was a face behind the grate, but it was too far away for him to make out any features in the dark. Again he searched futilely for a door or escape of any kind, stripping off his gloves to try and find purchase on the walls of the confessional. “I can’t—”

“I give to you unreservedly, my body and my eternal soul,” the voice continued, slowly beginning to even out. The tempo was strange and rhythmic, a foreign prayer rehearsed until it was a mantra. “Whatever darkness may befall me, I will endure with you beside me.” As soon as they finished, they began again, taking no time for breath between. “I give to you unreservedly, my body and my eternal soul. Whatever darkness may befall me, I will endure with you beside me.”

Lexaeus reached to the grate, using the heel of his palm in an attempt to dislodge it from its pane. “Who are you?” he demanded, the tightening in his chest no longer due to claustrophobia. “Where am I?” 

“Whatever darkness may befall me, I will endure with you beside me. Whatever darkness may befall me, I will endure with you beside me. I will endure with you beside me I will endure with you beside me I will _endure with you beside meIwillendurewithyoubesidemeIwillendurewithyoubesideme!”_ The voice became louder and louder, doubling up on itself until it rang out with inhuman speed. He clutched at his ears, trying to block out some of the horrendous shouts, but still there was a moment where the echoes seemed to sing out in _his_ voice, with _his_ timbre, and _his_ fury. Around him, the confessional shook, the earth beneath his feet quaking with a force reminiscent of his own. A particularly powerful tremor sent him crashing against the back wall, knocking the back of his head with dizzying force, and he collapsed onto the stone floor.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over—when the shaking stopped and he took to his feet once more, Lexaeus was stunned to find the room bathed in dim light. To his right was a mounted candelabra, though how he’d missed it originally he hadn’t the foggiest, the thin tallow candle burning serenely. The walls were not stone, as he had thought, but darkly polished wood, lined with dusty red velvet. His left hand had already found the handle of the door, and he eyed it warily before shoving it open.

An illusion? He had been so sure he had been trapped in the tight rock tomb, that it had been pitch black, that…The space between his eyes had begun buzzing angrily again. Kneading at the bridge of his nose with his fingers he blinked hard, clearing his mind of the static threatening to take over. Not now. There would be time later.

The corridor he stepped out into appeared to be a cave of sorts, the ceiling low, the walls packed tight with dirt and roots, stagnant puddles of murky water collecting on the ground. After a moment of regaining his equilibrium, he spotted the confessional’s other door and made short work of tearing it open.

It was lit now, too, but before he could register what he was seeing, he was bowled over by the stench. Hot and sour, like roadkill left to boil in the sun—he choked back a gag, reflexively covering the lower half of his face with his elbow as his eyes watered and vision blurred. There was no one in the room. But the walls and floor were stained and swollen brown with what could’ve only been old blood. The candle’s flame flickered, but before his gorge gave a threatening lurch he spied a brighter smear of red.

_can WE be forgiven?_

He didn’t dare reach out to touch it, but the blood still looked fresh.

Slamming the door shut, Lexaeus took a moment to steady himself, breathing deeply the earthen smell of the tunnel to try and clear the carrion reek from his sinuses. He rubbed at the back of his neck in agitation, trying to plot out his next course of action in his head. There was no way to go back the way he had come, given the distance he had fallen, so really there was little choice but to continue down the dimly lit path until ( _if_ ) it let out somewhere. In the back of his mind he reprimanded himself—the church doors had been _open_ , and he had _known_ that something about the hole hadn’t been _right_ —but deep down he knew there was nothing he would’ve done differently. He had always been a protector before anything else.

The tunnel itself appeared to be the beginnings of an addition to the church. There were construction materials scattered about, rusted tools and beetle-eaten drywall, buckets of dried up plaster full of mildew. Every so often he would come across water-stained leaves of paper or molding articles of clothing, but save for the candles burning on the walls, it seemed no one had ventured down here in quite a while. Even the air felt staler, somehow, though the flames didn’t much mind.

His footsteps echoed atop themselves, making it sound as though he were marching with an army of fifty instead of one. It was enough to make him glance over his shoulder not once, not twice, but three times before reaching the next wall-mounted candleholder.

Underneath it was the same symbol he’d seen earlier on the cover of the book, drawn in thick red lines. Looking at it for more than a moment made his head spin and stomach drop, sending strange shivers through him as though someone had popped open the top of his skull and taken to poking around. And so he kept walking.

This world was nothing like they had expected—not that they had expected much. He was learning very quickly, though, just what sort of place they were dealing with. Magic was blocked, their weapons were blocked…it was stripping them blind, leaving them defenseless and raw. It disoriented, it confused, and it terrified with the bastardized ghosts of memories. The illusions were an interesting choice. He wondered if the world was using _his_ powers to mislead the others, too. Not that worlds could be sentient.

The ceiling of the tunnel began to slope upward, giving him a bit more breathing room. Now there was no reason to hunch over or duck as he walked, but he now had to contend with freezing droplets of water falling from above. He must’ve been out from under the church, now, maybe underneath the street somewhere. It had to let out _somewhere_ , and he hoped he’d be finding the exit sooner rather than later.

Behind him, the cacophony of his footsteps continued to crash down in angry waves, but there was something else there, just under the surface. He slowed his pace but didn’t stop, suddenly hyper aware of his surroundings. A forgotten hymnal a yard back, a small collection of abandoned construction tools to his left…and the rasping noise behind him.

At first, he mistook the sound for breathing. It wasn’t until he felt the cuff of his cloak billow around his legs that he realized it was _wind_. But he had only just come down that way…and save for the hole he had dropped down from the church floor, there had been no _openings_ for such a powerful breeze to blow through.

He wasn’t alone in the tunnel anymore.

Lexaeus knew it immediately and instinctively, with a certainty as unshakeable as the ground he stood upon. Slowly, he turned into the wind, narrowing his eyes against the gust. The eyes level with his were purple and cold. 

One wing unfolded, then the other, all but filling the tunnel. The wind whistled around the points of the thick, rocky membranes; though the creature’s face was wrought of unmoving stone, it sounded very much as though it were howling in the darkness.

“I _knew_ you moved,” he muttered to himself, already falling into a more defensive stance.

The lights around them dimmed, but even then he could see the thing’s fingers flex, each ending in a sharpened hook of a claw. From this close he could see the corded muscle of its limbs rippling, but that was _impossible_ if it was made of stone. It lunged and Lexaeus dodged it just a moment too slow. A wing caught him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind from his lungs in one brutal blow. He caught himself, clutching at his chest with a wheeze.

When the thing rounded on him, he drove an elbow hard into its nose, letting out a roar of a curse as the pain shot up through his arm. _Stone_ , he had to remind himself, it was made of _stone_. It didn’t seem to have the spear all of its brethren had been clutching tight to their chests, and he was thankful for that, but the matter still remained: he was at a startling disadvantage. Hitting it would do no good, there was no use in trying to outrun it if it could knock him over with its damned wind, but it _had_ to have a vulnerability, it _had_ to be weak _somewhere_ , because _everything was_.

Its wings flared dangerously as it charged, muscular arms reaching and talons grasping, and in that flash of a moment he noticed the crack in its chest. Only about as thick as a finger, placed just over where a heart would’ve been. Something about the purple of its eyes seemed to flash with recognition, and the monster clamped its left hand over the fissure. _Aha_.

A burst of red-hot agony tore through him as his cheek was raked by the honed claws of its right hand, leaving his face throbbing. Furious at the affront, he reached out, planting both hands firmly on the thing’s shoulders and _shoving_ with all his might, sending it stumbling backwards.

The space was claustrophobic around them, both titans in their own right, and it was more luck than anything else that he managed to duck under one of the beast’s wings to grab something from the pile that had been gleaming just in his periphery. Compared to the usual heft of Skysplitter, the crowbar was flimsy at best, but it would have to do.

When the thing whirled back to face him, he struck it once, twice, three times across its face, sending it reeling backwards. It stumbled and reached out to the walls of the tunnel to steady itself, the wind tearing around its jerking wings with a scream. Lexaeus wasted no time in plunging the flattened end of the crowbar into the gaping crack in the creature’s chest, jamming the metal down at a sharp, brutal angle. For the barest moment, he could swear he felt a heartbeat resonating from within the rock.

The monster’s claws scraped through the loose dirt of the walls as it scrabbled to dislodge the weapon from its chest, but the Hero was quicker. He thought the purple chips of stone looked almost _plaintive_ as he threw his weight into the crowbar’s lever. A moment later, the light had faded from them entirely. The wind sputtered then died, scattering the gargoyle’s ashen remains across the floor of the tunnel.

“Pathetic,” he muttered, staring down at what was left of his opponent. There was no feeling of victory, though—something about the creature had struck him as uncannily familiar, leaving a strange, sour taste in the back of his mouth.

He wrote it off as more of the world’s attempt to shake him and nothing more. There’d been an uncomfortable wave of déjà vu thickening his thoughts since first he’d woken up, and this was no different.

Most of the candles hanging from the walls had been extinguished in the fight, snuffed out by the gargoyle’s disembodied draft, more like than not, but he thought he could see a faint flickering of light from further down the tunnel. He glanced down at the crowbar in hand, tapping it against his palm in a moment of consideration. If there were more of those things—and he suspected very heavily that there _were_ —at least he would have something to wield against them.

Lexaeus continued down through the cavern, shoulders set but senses raw, vigilantly anticipating whatever the world planned to throw at him next. As he walked, the muddy drips of water from ceiling became icy stalactites, his breath puffing out in plumes before him. He was no stranger to ice, nor cold, but each step brought with it a precipitous plunge in temperature. By the time he reached the mounted candlelight, his teeth had begun to chatter. 

He paused, some irrational part of him hoping that the tiny flames would help ease the chill from his joints, but found the wall smoothed out and ornately decorated. Half of the writing had been scratched into the stone as though by chisel, the other half written in a deep red ink. The hand was odd, curving this way and that, as though it had been the effort of many different people instead of just one author.

 _“There would be those who would serve the Holy One as attendants, doing as so they were ordered to become closer to God and Her glory. There too would be the executioners, bending to the bidding of God while reaping those who dare sin against Her.”_ The etching below the excerpt was crude, weathered by time and neglect, but he felt his breath catch in his chest all the same. A small, frail being in the center—their idea of a god, he supposed—stood surrounded by a glowing halo with arms outstretched. One hand was turned up in blessing, under which a skeletally thin creature stood, hands spread wide in a gesture of protection. The other hand turned down in a show of damnation above a gargantuan brute of a monster, the beast dragging a monstrous knife in its wake.

The faces had been scratched out by rot or reverence, he couldn’t be sure, but it was a scene he had seen before. An attendant, an executioner, and a tiny, omnipotent god. Even as he continued on down the darkened tunnel, the images shone brightly in his mind. It was not so hard to replace the missing faces with their own.

As skilled as he was with puzzles and riddles, Lexaeus had no idea what madness was unfolding before him. He found had little interest in waiting around to find out. He had to find Zexion. He had to find Vexen. There was something thick in the air that rang clear with warning: things were going to get _much_ worse for them all before they got better.


	4. The Prodigal Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Psychiatric institutions, needles, body horror, blood and gore, eye trauma.

The doors to the second floor patient wing bulged horribly from their hinges, warped and strained from impact. Vexen looked upon them with something like disgust pursing his lips, his spindly arms folded tightly across his chest. “There’s no other way,” he had to remind himself, “No other way to escape this dreadful place.” But still, he could see the sickly glow of that awful eye, could hear the sandpapery scratching of its laughter, could smell the stink of its breath…

Through the widened space between the doors, the hall beyond seemed dark and empty, devoid of noise or movement. And that was good, that was _very good_ , but who was to say that the shadows weren’t simply hiding something monstrous from view? Of all people, _Vexen_ knew how deceiving looks could prove themselves to be—knew it _implicitly_.

But the code hadn’t worked on the first floor keypad, he had found the lock of the third floor patient wing’s staircase maddeningly stuck, and this was the only route that remained. It was almost as though the hospital was _mocking_ him, somehow; as though it was watching as he squirmed. A few hours ago, he might’ve scoffed at that idea.

Now, though…now it was beginning to seem more and more likely.

He kept one of the uncapped syringes held firmly in his left hand. If the… _thing_ was still lurking just beyond the threshold, he knew there was little he could do to combat it. There was no guarantee he’d be able to get in close enough to use the needle, that he’d be quick enough, or that the paralytic agent would be strong enough to incapacitate it, but what other choice did he have? He never realized how entirely dependent he was upon his magic and shield until then, and the thought left a bitter taste at the back of his tongue.

With one final, deep breath to steel himself, he reached out and typed the numbers into the keypad. He cringed at the heavy _click_ of the locking mechanism’s release, as well as its subsequent echo, only allowing himself the faintest sliver of relief when imminent death did not strike him down where he stood. Carefully— _so carefully_ —he pushed one of the doors back in, allowing himself a gap large enough to slip through.

The hall was dark, but not entirely so; near the very end of the wing, a fluorescent light buzzed dismally from above, clicking and flickering as it sent the area into dim contrast. His footsteps, tentative though they were, were painfully loud in his own ears, each one heightening the tension winding its way between his ribs.

Steadying himself, he reached up and raked his fingers through his hair. Panicking would get him nowhere—he had already learned that much. The lighting was dim at best, but it did wonders for the lurking anxiety in his gut. All of the doors to the patient rooms were shut fast, their windows darkened and empty. The only area he couldn’t immediately see was the alcove where the stairs would be located, but it wasn’t as though anything was making noise enough to concern him…

From behind him, there was a _monstrous_ crash. The floor shook beneath his feet from the impact, and it was only his hand clamped over his mouth that kept him from reacting audibly. He whirled around in time to catch the faintest flicker of movement in his periphery.

His skin broke out in painful gooseflesh when the noises came again, this time from somewhere deep within the darkened room. The low, raspy laughter curled into snarls in the air, making him bristle with an uncomfortably uncanny sense of familiarity. Another crash, followed by a rumbling growl—Vexen had little interest in lingering to see whether the creature’s attention would hold.

Fingers tightening around the syringe, he began his slow, careful walk toward the staircase once more. As best he could, he held his breath as he crept forward, trying to remain perfectly silent, lest the _thing_ become aware of his presence.

“Even.”

Again, he all but jumped out of his skin, inhaling a breath so sharp that his lungs ached. The fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickled and stood on end, and he instinctively whipped his head around to see if he’d been spotted.

But the hall was _still_ empty. His throat tightened at the revelation, though he didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

“Even,” the voice came again, impossible to place yet somehow distinct in his mind. “Even. Even? Even Even Even _Even_.” The name, dusty with disuse, echoed and resounded in the hollow hall, collapsing in on itself until it doubled, tripled, quadrupled, ringing in his ears with an urgency that was at once terrified and mocking. Surely the beat would hear it…it was only a matter of time before the strange, wavering voice caught its attention and lured it out to him…

The door immediately to his right slowly swung open on its hinges.

“ _Even_.”

Breath tight in his chest, he watched the door with wide eyes, feeling somehow _pulled_ by the darkness past the threshold. He didn’t like the feel of it, didn’t like the dizzying vertigo spinning his senses about. This world was playing a game with him—a cruel, _horrible_ game—but there was no _way_ he was going to play along. 

“ _EVEN!_ ”

Behind him, the noise coming from the room at the end of the hall halted. Without another thought, Vexen all but dove into the open door, pushing it shut and fumbling with the knob until he heard it click shut.

So much for not playing along.

There was a moment of relief when his fingers easily found the switch on the wall, but it was immediately tempered by another jolt of surprise.

The body lay splayed across the examination table, skin waxy white, chest cavity wide open and glaringly obvious. His eyes moved immediately to the center of the butterflied ribcage, much in the same way a tongue can’t help but prod at the bloody wound where a tooth once was, and he was less than surprised to find that its heart had been removed, leaving nothing but putrefying green ooze in its wake.

“I am growing… _increasingly tired_ of this,” Vexen muttered to himself, narrowing his eyes as he warily approached the cadaver. How strange it was, he thought, that the room didn’t smell of blood or formaldehyde or any of the typical markers of dissection. Absently, he ran his fingers across the try of surgical instruments, the scientist in him unintentionally (and inappropriately) riveted by the scene even as he furrowed his brow in disgust and examined the subject from the corner of his eye. “Oh, for the _love of_ …” Vexen rolled his eyes to the ceiling with an impatient cluck of his tongue.

It was a practice dummy. Of _course_ it was a dummy—the fact that he’d let himself think anything else, when all of the signs had pointed to it… “I’m losing my mind,” he sighed, not without the faintest trace of anger tightening his voice, “I am absolutely _losing_ my _mind_.” He blinked hard, as though to mentally gather his bearings, pulling his eyes away from the mannequin just long enough to get a better feel for the room.

Another examination room, it seemed: all tile floors and chipped white paint, privacy screens pressed against the walls and files strewn sloppily atop tables and counters. Plastered over what he thought might’ve once been a sink (it was too far-gone with rust and rot to tell anymore), he spied a faded yellow memo, its words bleeding through with time, but still just as bold and foreboding:

_“ ATTENTION EMPLOYEES:_

_As you all may have heard, today a nurse was bitten by a patient believed to be sedated. It is for this very reason that it is so exceedingly important to remember to read each patient’s medical chart BEFORE entering their room. Just because a patient has not exhibited violence in the past does not mean they will not lash out in the future. From here on out, be sure you are USING THE UTMOST CAUTION with your patients.”_

He curled his lip at the sentiment, glancing back down at the dummy suspiciously. As though on cue, something in its neck joint snapped, sending its head rolling onto the floor with a clatter, and Vexen let out an embarrassingly shrill little noise. He kicked the head away from him in a juvenile show of frustration, scowling to himself all the while. For a moment—brief and fleeting—he thought he could hear a child’s giggle coming from the back wall of the room, tiny and airy and _sharp_. But he didn’t dwell on it, if only because he feared acknowledging it would mean accepting he had gone mad, and he was _not_ about to give the damned world that satisfaction.

Setting his shoulders, he huffed out a resolved breath. He had to get a _hold_ of himself, had to stop falling prey to the creeping taunts and tricks of this place. He was better than that, he was _better than that_. When he looked back down from the dummy’s open chest and its ridiculously colored organs, he found that he had inadvertently plucked up one of the more considerable scalpels from the array of implements on the tray.

It wasn’t much, he thought, but better than nothing, and more likely to land a strike in a pinch than the syringe. He slid it into the pocket of his cloak carefully, feeling it clink reassuringly against the other makeshift weapon in his growing arsenal.

At least the detour hadn’t been a _complete_ waste of his time and energy…Vexen reached up and knotted his fingers in his hair as he took a moment to collect his thoughts. He didn’t like how very quickly this place could sap him of his reason, didn’t like it _one bit_. Constantly having to regroup like this was hardly ideal, particularly if he had any hope of escaping in the near future. And where _were_ the others? Again, he felt himself grimace, knowing full well that a façade of concentration and levelheadedness would be infinitely easier to maintain with V and VI looming in his wake.

He would move back into the hall— _slowly_ and _silently_ , so as not to draw any more attention to himself than he already had—making his way to the patient wing staircase, head to the first floor, and _carefully_ slip through the day room to the exit on the other side. _Then_ he could worry about finding the others, _then_ he could get a better feel for the world they’d been thrown into, _then_ he could begin drafting a chilly and biting letter of complaint to the Superior for allowing VII to assign them such a _terrible_ mission.

Feeling only incrementally better with a plan laid out before him, Vexen turned to reach for the doorknob, only for his eyes to fall upon a familiar typeface. He groaned an impatient breath through his nose, but slid the memo closer all the same, too perfectionistic in his reconnaissance methods to simply let it slip past.

“Patient File: 5389-32

Patient Name: I **X** n **XX** z **XX** in **X**

Oversee **XXX** Ph **XXXXX** an: An **XXX** son

 **XXX** e: 6-30

The picture is **XXXXXXXXXXX** o make sense. I had my suspicions when he attacked that nurse, **XXXXXXXXXXXXXX** (We assured everyone it was only a minor incident, but **XXXXXXXXXXX** had to have her jaw wired shut **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** skin grafts, but **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** ot know the extent to which **XXXXXXXXX** true.) I **X** n **XXXX** never been anything but quiet and obedient since he arrived, and the incident **XXXXXXXXXX** lly out of his character. **XXXXXXXXXXXXXX** of course, how small and sickly he is—I have **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** truggle to open the cafeteria doors on his own— **XXXXXXXXX** not have believed it possible for him to overpower the nurs **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 **XXXXXXXXX** test session, he spoke briefly **XXXXXXXX** tenuous relationship with his father. It appears **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** oy’s only relative, but **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** notably agitated **XXX** refused to continue speaking **XXXXXXXX** atter. Despite his constant mention, searc **XXXXXXXXXXXXX** no evidence of a “Zane **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** family or otherwise. I must admit that I am of the school of skeptics, **XXXXXXXX** c **XXXXXXXXX** i **XX** ociative **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** is behavior is beginning to suggest it **X**

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** haps we should consid **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX** ome additional safety precautions.”

“’Additional safety precautions’? I should think so,” he scoffed coldly, flicking the paper back onto the countertop where it had lay crumpled before. Decades of experience had taught him, if nothing else, it was the tiny, quiet ones you had to worry about the _most_. Easy to underestimate, hard to read, and quick to draw blood. He’d learned that the hard way with Ienzo after all—

The chill of déjà vu swept over him again. There was a strange, tight ache twisting its way through his chest, threatening to overtake him as realization began to dawn. Was _that_ why the doctor’s notes had seemed so familiar to him?

He swallowed through the lump in his throat, shrugging his shoulders sharply, as though to dislodge the mantle of dread that had been weighing him down. This was preposterous, just another mind game, and he did not have the _time_ for it.

One hand on the doorknob, he turned the lights off once more, pulling the door open with painstaking care to keep it from squeaking. He slipped back into the hallway without bothering to shut the examination room door behind him, already taking carefully measured steps toward the alcove where the staircase was tucked away. He cast a quick look from over his shoulder, straining his eyes in the low light to see whether the thing was still occupied in the room at the other end of the hall. The doors were still open, the room’s contents a mess, and the hall was as empty as it ever had been, so he continued his tentative trek forward.

The alcove was well within view when he noticed the stench. His stomach gave a warning lurch before his brain registered the smell, something like decaying meat and charred rubber, causing the muscles of his throat to clench painfully around his breath. Vexen covered his mouth preemptively as he gagged at the suddenness of it all, so distracted that he didn’t recognize anything was amiss until a heavy _thump_ sounded from behind him, the floor shaking beneath his feet, almost as it might if something had fallen from the ceiling…

He did not want to turn around. 

His muscles went rigid with some useless startle response, seizing up entirely like a rodent scenting a cat. The air behind him was hot and cold in turn, measuring the beast’s breathing in jagged gasps. Each exhale brought with it the horrible, enveloping odor of carrion and terror, heavy and thick around him.

It was only with the utmost effort that Vexen managed to take another slow, measured step, keeping his posture entirely unaffected as he crept forward. He continued the charade for a handful of seconds that stretched on like eons before he _had_ to look, his brain screaming _no_ but his scientific curiosity making a much more compelling argument.

His head had turned maybe an inch before he caught sight of the terrible, glaring yellow eye in the half-light, bloodshot and slitted, and then the thing _howled_ a bloodcurdling, papery scream, and Vexen _ran_.

How his feet managed to carry him that quickly, he didn’t know, but he all but _flew_ to the metal door tucked away in the alcove, whipping it open with such force that his arm would ring out in agony once he came back to his senses, diving into the dark stairway. The next moment he was tumbling, a mess of elbows and legs as his boot missed the slick edge of the top stair, sending him crashing to the landing at the midway point. His back slammed against one of the side rails as he crumpled, but was scrambling onto his feet within the second, taking the remaining stairs two at a time until he reached the door at the very bottom, marked with a reflective “ **1F**.” Shoulder ramming into the door, he burst into the first floor patient wing, acting on adrenaline and preservation alone. Though the hall was pitch black, he could just barely make out a heavy set of double doors looming to his right, and so he pushed his way through, letting them swing shut behind him as he ducked into the first room he spotted—pushing the second set of double doors shut and fumbling until he found and latched its locking mechanism.

It was then, and _only_ then, that he allowed himself to slump down onto the floor, back flush against the doors, chest heaving with pained, whistling breaths. Eyes screwed shut, he covered his face with his hands, grasping onto his already tenuous sanity. The world spun beneath him as he caught his breath, twisting his stomach into nauseous knots. He thought he might vomit or lose consciousness or at the very least _scream_ , but instead pulled in breath after breath until the thrumming of his nerves was replaced with a dull, resounding muscular ache.

Behind the doors, there was nothing but silence—no laughter, no screaming, no heavy footsteps clomping after him, and for that he was grateful. Vexen swallowed, despite the dryness of his mouth, hands pressed tight over his eyes as he calmed himself. He would have to check the map and try and decide where he was, how badly he had thrown himself off of his course, whether he’d still be able to find his way to the day room now that the _thing_ had caught scent of him…but before he opened his eyes, he knew with unshakeable certainty _exactly_ where he was. Each breath he pulled in was damp and cool, tasting of soil after a rainstorm. He was in the hospital’s garden.

He cracked an eye and peeked through his fingers, only to be greeted by an unyielding wall of green. The walls were covered, not with paper or paint but _ivy_ , thick and climbing up and up and up until the vaulted ceiling became nothing but blackness, its skylights long since covered or night long since fallen. All manner of vines and roots hung down from the rafters, swinging in the air like skeletal fingers, most brittle and brown with age and thirst. Even the ground he sat upon, he found, wasn’t carpet, but grass, crunching anciently beneath him.

Oh, the aneurysm XI would have if he saw the state of _this_. It was with that thought that a small, strained little laugh escaped him, exorcising a fair amount of the terror that had been building up between his ribs.

At once intimately aware of the pain in his joints, Vexen began to ease himself up, legs still shaking something awful under his weight. He patted his pocket, glad to find that he hadn’t lost either of his would-be weapons in the fall. The angry letter he had been planning became _significantly_ less civil, in his head, and he scowled as he brushed dirt and dust from his cloak.

He had seen the garden on the map earlier—a huge, sprawling room used for therapeutic reasons, no doubt, but located on the opposite end of the patient wing from the exit. His head throbbed at the aspect of venturing back out into the hall.

There was no use in rushing back into it. Not when he didn’t know whether or not he was still being pursued. He would have to be _calm_ and _rational_ and _collected_ if he wanted to get out of here, and it was for that reason (and that reason _alone_ ) that he decided perhaps the garden warranted further inspection.

Rows of pots lay dormant in the darkness, their blooms having shriveled long ago, leaving nothing but mummified petals and stems. There were benches veined thickly with rust, their decorative frames filled in with spider webs heavy with prey. In the very center, there was a grand, magnificent fountain reaching up toward the second floor, its stone figures eroded past the point of recognition. Below it, only a few gallons of water remained stagnant, clouded over with insect eggs.

With a grimace, he knelt down to inspect the pool, lip curling as the fetid reek of the water hit him. The air was suddenly thick with the hot, green smell of rot and decay, barely serving as warning enough before the spouts began rattling to life. One after one, the jets of the fountain burbled up over the surface, sending cascades of murky brown water every which way. They spat and sputtered, clogged with algae and moss, and it was only narrowly that he avoided a face full of it.

“Not quite the fountains we’re used to, hmm?”

Starting violently, Vexen whirled around to the source of the voice, exhaling a curt grunt of relief as he spotted the familiar shadowy waif.

“Then again…” Zexion continued his languid stroll along the fountain’s edge, boots somehow avoiding each and every errant drop of viscous sludge. “Not really the _Garden_ we’re used to, either.” He craned his head back, looking up toward the spiraling, unending blackness of the ceiling, before turning his attention back to Vexen. “Heart giving you some trouble?” he asked, inflection turned up as sharply and mockingly as the smirk curling the corner of his mouth.

Glancing down, it was only then Vexen realized how tightly he had clutched onto his chest. The surprise of Zexion’s voice had triggered the response, obsolete and ridiculous as it was, and he quickly brushed the wrinkles out of his cloak. “Where have _you_ been?” he snapped, finding it much easier now to speak with his usual sternness, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been _looking_ for you?!” He hoped the fear wasn’t obvious in his tone, but Zexion could read people as easily as text on a page.

“Apologies.” In a motion that was at once both eerily abrupt and childish, Zexion hopped down from the fountain, continuing to smile that secret smile up at Vexen. “I would’ve thought you’d heard me, by now. I’ve been making quite the racket…so many of these doors are locked.” Absently, he looked back up toward the rafters, eyes scanning for anything of note. “Strange how we didn’t arrive together, isn’t it? Absolutely perplexing. That’s never happened before, has it? Perhaps it has something to do with the conditions of—”

“Stop, _stop!_ ” Vexen brought his hands up in front of him, shaking his head rapidly as he tried to stem the flow of Zexion’s observations. “Yes, it’s all very strange. But that hardly answers my question. Where have you _been_?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, not at all trusting the smirk on the Schemer’s lips, much less the excitement in his voice. Couldn’t he see this was _serious?_ “I’ve been calling for you.”

“Oh!” Jerked from his reverie, Zexion looked back to him, “I’ve been researching.”

“ _Researching?_ ” Vexen was blindsided by another crippling wave of déjà vu, so sudden and powerful that it threatened to knock him off of his feet. Was this a conversation they’d _had_ before?

But that was obvious— _of course_ it was. How often had Ienzo run off, worrying them all to no end, only to be dragged back some hours later by the scruff of his neck? Though it hadn’t happened in…well… _years_. Ienzo’s thirst for knowledge and discovery had soured somewhere down the line, replaced by a lust for prestige, for fear, for _respect._ And yet here was Zexion, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of the sort of poorly restrained glee he hadn’t seen since the underground laboratory, cuffs of his lab coat stained sticky with blue. It was then that another realization struck him.

“Where’s your cloak?” Without the Organization’s signature uniform, it was all too easy to mix up names and ages. Vexen was at a loss, then, awash in an unwanted wave of nostalgia and gooseflesh. He had never before found himself unable to discern where _Zexion_ ended, and where _Ienzo_ began. He needed to leave this world before his mind turned entirely to mush.

“That’s a long story,” Zexion said, waving the thought off as one might a speck of dust. “But yes, researching. I woke up in the historical society, not too far from this place, really, just as I imagine _you_ woke up _here_ …” He looked around again, reaching up to rake his hair from out of his eyes. “As soon as I saw the hospital on the town map, I just _knew_ this was where you’d be…strange, isn’t it? All of it. So very, very strange…I’ve yet to find any _conclusive_ evidence, but I strongly suspect that there’s some _sentience_ to this world. Almost as though it _knows us_ …” He let out a deep, satisfied breath before dropping his arms to his sides. “How about you? What’ve you found?”

“ _Rust_ ,” he replied stiffly, trying to shake himself out of the bizarre frame of mind he’d somehow fallen into. “Locked doors. You. What matters is what I _haven’t_ found. Namely, _an exit_.” He kneaded at his temples in agitation, surprised—as ever—to find how very quickly Zexion could twist his anxiety into frustration.

“There’s an exit through the day room,” Zexion commented breezily, clasping his hands behind his back as he began wandering once more.

Vexen rolled his eyes to the ceiling, exhaling a heavy breath. “I am _aware_. The map—” He paused, turning to face the other once more, “ _The map_. The map that _you_ left.”

“I thought it might be helpful.” He smiled again, a strange and alien little thing, seeming somehow more brittle than the wilted vines reaching down from the rafters. “Lest you spend the rest of eternity running through halls like a rat in a maze. I suppose I could’ve waited around with it until you found me, but I just _couldn’t help myself_. This place is so… _intriguing_. I had to do some exploring of my own, I’m sure you understand, so I figured it would simply be easier to leave you with some assistance until such a time as we could—”

He whirled on him, hoping to use his height as intimidation, narrowing his eyes as he stared down at the other Nobody. “I have spent all this time fleeing for _my life_. And you thought it would be a good idea to traipse around _leaving me breadcrumbs_.”

Puzzled, Zexion quirked an eyebrow, “Fleeing for your life? Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a bit? I mean, I can see how tetanus could be a legitimate concern here, but I promise you it’s not _nearly_ that fast-acting.”

He stood dumbfounded, mouth pressed into a tight pucker of indignation. How had he _ever_ thought finding VI would be a good idea? “Are you mocking me?” he asked slowly, syllables clipped. “This place is full of _monsters_. How can you just sit there and _make jokes?_ ”

Zexion’s smile faltered, but only slightly, the corners turning down into something resembling befuddlement. “…monsters?” he said after a time, eyes searching Vexen’s face for any hint of deception. “This place is _empty_. I haven’t run into a single living thing, besides you of course, and even then, _you’ve_ seen better days…” he allowed himself another cruel little smirk before huffing a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “The dark must be playing tricks on your eyes.”

Never before had the desire to strike VI been so very, very strong within him. For a moment, he contemplated giving the boy a piece of his mind: did he have _any_ idea what he had just been through?! And while he would be the first to admit that perhaps this place _was_ having an affect on his capacity to reason, there wasn’t _any_ way he had _imagined_ that creature and its rotting breath, its single, bloody eye…But he found he was too _tired_ to argue with Zexion, too deflated from the day’s course of events. And so he simply pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes and took a steadying breath. “Is V with you, then?”

There was a moment where he seemed confused again, his attention so easily distracted from the matter at hand, but he recovered himself after a second. “Oh. No, he’s not. I guess I supposed he would be somewhere nearby. _You_ haven’t found him, then?”

“Why would I have asked _you_ if _I_ had already found him?” Vexen intoned flatly, shooting an anxious glance toward the door to the hallway. “I had expected you’d go looking for _him_ first.”

Following his gaze, Zexion scoffed, pushing past him to unlatch the door and step out of the garden. “Why would I do _that?_ ” he asked, holding the door open for Vexen, mockingly flourishing the empty anteroom beyond, “V can take care of himself.”

“And I _can’t?_ ” he bristled, walking through the first set of doors, but lingering in front of the second, remembering with terrible clarity the terror of the earlier chase.

Zexion sized him up, a wicked taunt shining in his eyes. “I _did_ find you curled in the fetal position, hyperventilating and raving about _monsters_ ,” he pointed out, throwing his weight into the heavier set of doors before stepping into the patient wing, “So do with that as you will.”

“I’d watch my mouth, if I were you,” he replied coolly, still hanging back. “I hope you’ve found some manner of _illumination_ during your casual stroll about the place,” Vexen said, the bite in his voice only slightly dulled by the anxiety creeping back into the pit of his stomach. “We’re not going to be able to see much without…” From the other side of the doors, Zexion reemerged, using one of his feet as a stopper; he spread wide one arm in a gesture that needed no words. The lights overhead blared, bathing every nook and cranny of the hall in bright, inescapable light. Vexen felt his jaw muscles clench. 

“You were saying?” Zexion watched him for a moment, eyebrows raised dangerously high. “Is this how _all_ of your solo missions go?”

Glaring, Vexen shoved his way past Zexion, entering the patient wing with a newfound bravado. This wasn’t right—none of it was—but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when they were _so close_ to escape. “We can discuss your insolent tone later. For now, let’s just leave this awful place.”

“Without examining the rooms?” His disbelieving stare was met with the sort of unflinching stubbornness he’d come to expect, Zexion already approaching the nearest patient suite and jiggling the door’s handle. “This is a _recon_ mission, unless you’ve forgotten—”

“To _hell_ with the _mission_ , Zexion! This _place_ —”

“I know, I know, _monsters_ ,” he parroted, waving his fingers teasingly before his expression hardened again. “If you want to run away, go right ahead. It’s not as though this is your _job_ , after all.” He shot Vexen another harsh smirk as he passed by, attempting the next door, only to find it locked as well. “I would’ve thought you’d feel right at home in a place like this. Nothing like the smell of disinfectant in the morning and all that, hmm?”

Vexen watched as he strolled down the hall, trying each and every door. This was _surreal_. He would let Zexion do as he pleased, so long as it meant he could stay in the light, away from whatever creature lurked upstairs. It all felt strange, though— _convenient_ —how suddenly the hospital had fallen silent, how the lights had all burst back to life as soon as he’d come across the other. Almost as though… “Are you able to use your powers?” he asked, brow furrowed in suspicion.

On the north side of the hall, he finally found a door that swung open freely, peering inside. “I am not,” Zexion answered, cocking his head in interest as he looked in the room. “I haven’t been able to do…well…much of _anything_ since we arrived. Frustrating, isn’t it? I’m not a fan of being defenseless. Come over here, tell me what you make of this.”

“Why would you need my input?” he scowled, still feeling slighted. Zexion was a nuisance on the best of days, but was nigh _insufferable_ without Lexaeus to act as a buffer. “I’m just a senile old man, after all.” 

“That was never a question. I just thought perhaps a _superior member_ would appreciate the opportunity to explain something like this, that’s all.” The mockery in his voice was cloying, making something under his skin itch.

“If you insi—oh good Lord.” He stood with Zexion in the doorway, a corner of his lip turning up in disgust at the state of the room. There was no surgical dummy in this examination room. Instead, the table was stained damp and brackish red with thick pools of gelatinous blood, the walls sprayed with the stuff as though the poor patient had simply _exploded_ upon contact. That wasn’t the worst of it, though.

Cluttering the shelves along the ceiling, the countertops, tabletops, shoved into the sinks and falling out of rotting cabinet doors were jars. All manner, it seemed, ranging from specimen jars to those used for canning preserves, full of strangely discolored preserving liquids…and hearts. Human hearts. There had to be _hundreds_ of them, crowding the room until it seemed as though the walls themselves were made of glass and tissue.

And it must’ve been a trick of the faulty ventilation, because Vexen could almost _swear_ he could hear the heavy, rhythmic thumping of a pulse emanating from somewhere behind the walls.

“I feel…like there’s some sort of joke here,” Zexion said, breaking the silence with a low, unpleasant chuckle. “But for the _life_ of me…I can’t figure out what it is.” He folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head as he took in the sight. “Almost _impressive_ , isn’t it? Hmm.”

Vexen afforded him the briefest, most concerned look he could muster, given the circumstances.

Zexion shrugged noncommittally, nodding toward the countertop to Vexen’s left. “What’s that?” he asked, and when Vexen followed his gaze, he found yet another slip of paper from what seemed to be the same doctor’s notepad.

He picked it up, wincing at the odd weight of it, the paper (much like everything else in the room) having been fairly soaked in blood in the recent past.

“Patient **XXXXXXXXXX** -32

Patient Name: I **XX** N **X** zo **XXXX**

Overseeing Physician: An **XXX** so **X**

 **XXXXXXX** -1

I met Zane today”

There was no more to the memo, the next line of text having been entirely smeared away by a thick splatter of blood, coating the lower half of the page in a deep, congealed brown. It was an anticlimactic end to a saga, he felt, but there was still a prickling finger of cold that ran down his spine as he read the words.

“A _friend_ of yours?” Zexion asked, reading the note next to him, glancing up to Vexen with that strange, esoteric smirk that he did not much appreciate.

The uncomfortable thought from before surfaced again. What had the note he’d found in the locker room said? _He’s constantly running his mouth, and that smile, man…that SMILE…_ Vexen shivered despite himself. He’d had enough of this eeriness for one lifetime. “Let’s just…continue on, shall we?” He placed the note back on the counter, much as he had done with its second-floor counterpart, trying to jar himself out of the strange prison of déjà vu he’d found himself trapped in. “I’m growing tired of this madness.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Vexen quickly made his way to the end of the hall, silently releasing a relieved sigh when the large double doors came into view. “ **Day room** ” the doors proclaimed, and faded spray paint never looked so beautiful to him.

“You don’t want _me_ to go first?” Zexion asked, voice a discordant sing-song from behind him. “What if there are _monsters?_ ” He snickered, sliding past him to open one of the doors. “It’s pretty _dark_ in here…sure you’re going to be able to handle it?” He glanced up, pulling a face at the wreckage of the ceiling—years of rot and caused the floor of the room above to cave in almost entirely, resulting in huge, gaping holes between the two stories. “Hope you’re not afraid of _asbestos_ , too, because have I got some bad news.”

And that was it. That was the final straw. After all he had been through, all he had seen and suffered, he was _not_ about to take Zexion’s smart mouth. “What has gotten _into you?_ ” he snapped, letting the doors swing shut behind him. Save for the faint beams of light coming from the room above and the small window of the exit on the other side of the room, they plunged into shadow once more. “Is this some sort of a _game_ to you? We’re in an unknown world, faced with a hostile population—”

“Of invisible monsters,” Zexion interjected, arms folded across his chest. 

“And all you can do is _jeer_. You are acting _so bizarrely_ , are you aware of that? You haven’t stopped _moving_ since I found you, you’re _strangely_ cheerful for someone caught in this sort of nightmarish wasteland, and you’re behaving like a _child_.” He knew it was the wrong thing to say the very instant the words passed his lips, Zexion’s expression darkening before the final syllable had opportunity enough to echo through the hollow room.

“A child,” he began quietly, mouthing the word as though it were an unthinkable curse, lips tightening until they all but disappeared into a hard line. “A _child_. I am acting. Like a _child_.” His eyes were sharp glints of ice in the low light. “You’ll pardon me if the aspect of uncovering a world with this sort of strength and _ability_ excites me. You’ll _pardon me_ for trying to fulfill my duties to the fullest. And you’ll _pardon me_ if I become impatient with the blathering old man whose brain is _apparently_ so addled by years of chemical fumes that he’s begun _seeing things_ where there’s _nothing to be seen_.”

As he spoke, a flurry of movement snagged Vexen’s attention, eyes flitting up toward the ceiling. It was difficult to see in the half-light, but he could’ve sworn something had shifted. If he squinted, he thought he could _almost_ make out a shape, but…

A single, yellow eye cut through the darkness like an anglerfish’s lure, bobbing along the ceiling as its owner crawled its way down from the room above.

“The fact that you would take issue with _my_ comportment is _ludicrous_ , considering the way you’re—”

“Zexion,” Vexen said stiffly, eyes glued to the slitted eye as it grew ever closer, creeping up behind the other Nobody. “We need to go. _Right now_.”

Unmoved, Zexion scowled, lifting his nose in a show of distaste. “Really, now? You’re going to insult me, cut me off, and then expect me to happily go along with your directives? Humor me. _Why_ would I do that?”

It was all but upon them, now, lurking just feet away from Zexion, its silhouette uncomfortably _human_ in the dim lighting, and Vexen found he was unable to speak as he slowly lifted his hand and pointed to the looming creature.

With an impatient sigh, Zexion turned, following his line of sight. The terrible, bloodshot eye swiveled to him, the pupil further constricting until it was barely more than a black slash, and Vexen readied himself for the panicked yell…that never came. Zexion turned back to look at him, clearly unimpressed, dropping his hands at his sides. “And what is it I’m supposed to be looking at, exactly?”

The world collapsed from under Vexen’s feet. “You don’t…you don’t see it?” he whispered, voice dry and cracked in his throat, body running unusually hot with fear as his eyes began to truly adjust to the impossible shape of the thing. “It’s… _right there_.”

Turning again, Zexion set his arms akimbo, looking first this way and that before clucking his tongue. “There’s _nothing_ there. Just like I’ve been saying this whole time.” A spindly finger missed his face by a hair, illuminated just faintly enough for Vexen to make out what appeared to be an unnatural number of knuckles. “You’re losing your grip,” he said flatly, pivoting on his heel and heading toward the exit. 

“Zexion—” he started, eyes riveted to the creature as he slowly skirted around it, trying to make his way to the other side of the room. Just as Zexion pushed the door open, though, Vexen was struck across the chest by something frighteningly solid, sending him sprawling to the floor. “ _Zexion!_ ” he called again, but the exit was already falling closed, Zexion disappearing behind it.

As the door slammed shut on its hinges, it jarred the overhead lights back into life, each clicking on in turn, revealing the reality of the creature before him.

The sudden burst of light caused it to hiss—a gravelly wheeze of a sound—its long, disjointed hands clutching its face to protect its eye from the brightness. It stood vaguely human in shape, though its bones were far too thin, its movement much too fluid as it convulsed in alien ways. Its skin hung from its bones in leathery wrinkles, wrought with open sores and gaping chasms, revealing the horrible viscera beneath.

Vexen pushed himself back up onto his feet, rushing to the exit and throwing his full weight into the door’s latch, only to find it damnably stuck, the force of Zexion’s adolescent outburst apparently enough to cause the mechanism to catch. “ _Nonononononono_ ,” he babbled, pushing himself into the door again and again until the thing behind him came to its senses and _growled_. He whirled, pressing his back against the door.

With its hands removed from its head, he could see its terrible face. The skin of its skull was tight, the too-large orbits of its eye sockets glaringly empty above the flat expanse of its nasal cavity. For a dizzying moment, he wondered where its eye had gone to, but then it opened its mouth. Its cheeks split wide in a gruesome chelsea smile, the tears curling up and up until even its molars could be seen, yellow and rotting and sticking jaggedly out from its black gums. It screamed another rasping, grating laugh, and _launched_ itself against him.

He dodged, rolling just out of its line of attack, watching as it careened headfirst into the exit door. It snarled in pain, its breaths coming out in papery shudders as it righted itself. Reaching up with one gnarled hand, it pulled itself up onto the wall, planting its feet solidity in an upsetting act against gravity.

“Oh come _on_ ,” he muttered to himself as it shifted its stride, shoulders loose and arms dangling to obscene lengths. He made a move to escape its reach, but just a second too late.

Inhumanly strong fingers hooked into his bony shoulders, pulling him up and off of the ground until his feet dangled. Vexen let out a pitiful sound of surprise as he was shoved up against the wall, his face only inches from its. It laughed as it panted, each wheeze sending hot clouds of rancid breath pluming out.

Wide-eyed, Vexen watched as its grin split open and it cackled, its long, prehensile tongue curling in midair like some bloated coffin slug. It was then, as it opened its mouth wide and wider still, revealing the raw throat beyond, that he saw it. Hanging past the curve of its tongue, some strange travesty of a uvula swung: the single, bloodshot, bulging eye.

The pupil constricted as it met his gaze, recognizing the fear radiating off of him in thick waves. It pulled in another deep, choked breath before _shrieking_ its unholy laughter, shaking dust from the ceiling it perched itself on.

And Vexen, staring down its throat and past its saliva-slick fangs, possessed by his terror and moved by self-preservation, did something he’d never done before.

He acted on impulse.

Before the logical part of his brain had time enough to lodge a formal complaint, he had pulled the scalpel from his pocket. He plunged the blade deep into the eyeball, twisting his wrist as harshly as he could, given the strange angle; later, when the hospital was far behind him, a vaguely menacing outline on the horizon, he would think back to that moment and wonder _why_ he had thought it the best course of action.

Any second now, the thing would clamp down and take the better part of his forearm with it, severing it into a gory stump, and…

It jerked backwards to get as far from Vexen as it could, but this time it was the _creature_ that reacted just a second too slowly. The damage had been done. It dropped Vexen unceremoniously, reaching up and clawing at its face as it gagged and choked on its own black blood, coughing in wet bursts. It _screamed_ all the while, its laughter turned frantic.

He landed on his feet as the beast released him, and made a beeline for the exit, watching as convulsed once, twice, three times, before one final, gurgling breath escaped it. It hung from the ceiling, motionless, its arms dangling, not unlike the withered vines in the garden. Its jaw hung open wide as though its skull was hinged, tongue lolling as a steady drip of blood gathered into a pool beneath it.

When he tried the exit door again, he found it opened without incident.

Vexen didn’t wait to see if the thing was really, _truly_ dead. In truth, he didn’t much care. He stepped out of the hospital without another word, without a glance to his blood-slicked arm. The frigid air hit his face, blowing his hair back, the brightness of the snow straining his eyes, and in a strange way, it almost felt like going home.

When he caught up with Zexion, they would have _words_. That much, he swore.


	5. His Keeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings:

Cold was not something he was unused to. Even before the preternatural chill of The World That Never Was, even before the veil of frost that warned of Vexen’s presence, there had been the dark draft of the underground laboratories. He was a man made of stone turned flesh, but it could be debated that it had been _ice_ that had carved and shaped him into who he had become. Still, he found it impossible to keep from shivering.

The air in the tunnel was wet and cold, unnaturally heavy and thick in his lungs. Each breath felt more painful than the last, numbing him to the core before sending sharp stabs between his ribs. From the ceiling hung translucent stalactites, their knife-like points glinting threateningly in the darkness. The walls were wrought with silver veins of glassy ice, spreading farther and farther ahead of him, guiding him along like skeletal fingers.

He had been walking for hours or minutes—it was impossible to tell, painful to think upon. The world had a strange flow of time, stranger still than the Castle, but he wasn’t about to give it the satisfaction of his concern. The fabric of his cloak had gone stiff with cold some time ago, and each time he moved his arms or rolled his shoulders, it would make a small, sad cracking sound. But he had survived worse.

The images on the wall were still troubling him. He hadn’t passed any other drawings in all the time he’d been wandering the tunnel, hadn’t borne witness to any other gospels, and yet…the worry weighed on him, filling the back of his head with heavy, papery whispers he couldn’t quite parse. Among their ranks, some would believe him dense, his tacit nature and looming figure belying the extent of his cleverness, but his aptitude with puzzles and riddles was unmatched—not that it took a genius to recognize the cloying similarities.

This world’s inhabitants, whether currently or in times past, held a belief in certain figures: a spectral attendant, a loyal executioner, and the tiny, powerful child who would serve as host to their god. The attendant, with its shield, served and protected the child; the executioner destroyed all those who got in the way, annihilating them with the crushing weight of its knife. He furrowed his brow as he trudged on, but the thought wouldn’t leave him. The story told on the wall was _theirs_ , impossible as it seemed.

Lexaeus thought he was beginning to understand why the world had split them up as it had. As a Guard, he had studied a fair bit of strategy, and there was only _one_ reason to divide an enemy’s ranks: to weaken them. Could it be that this place _wanted_ them? Wanted to isolate them, pluck them apart one by one in order to confuse and conquer them? They _so_ resembled the holy figures of the world…what if it believed they _were_ those figures? Perhaps the world wanted them—wanted their _power_.

His thoughts were silenced as the permafrost beneath his feet began to tremble. He tightened his grip around the crowbar he had found earlier, glancing warily over his shoulder for any sign of another approaching creature. Now that he knew the stone monster’s weakness, all apprehension had been replaced with steady resolution.

But there was nothing behind him, so far as he could tell; his eyes had adjusted to the darkness rather quickly, and even the faint light from the candle clusters he had passed seemed uninterrupted. So what, then…?

The ground gave another lurch, and he found he actually had to steady himself against one of the walls. He realized what was happening a moment later than he should’ve—he was so accustomed to being on the _other_ side of such an upheaval that his mind was unable to make the connection for a few seconds.

It was an _earthquake_. Or would be, if he waited around long enough.

He braced himself as best he could, immediately aware of the dirt and debris beginning to rain down from the ceiling of the tunnel. Soon, so would the icicles. Almost reproachfully he cast his gaze to the curved roof of the path, watching as the icy daggers gleamed and dripped. The tremors underneath him were growing steadily, a deep growl buzzing through the air as though the earth itself had grown mad with hunger.

Already, he could hear a faint tinkling, as if of broken glass, from the stretch of tunnel behind him. Chips of ice skittered across the ground, tapping against his boots warningly. The time to move was _now_.

Ice, illusions, and now _this_. His earlier suspicions had been right on the mark, it seemed—the world was using their own powers against them.

The tremors had quickly bled into quakes, and it was only through years of practice that he was able to continue walking. If this world thought it could sway his step— _him_ of all people, the one who had mastered the dominion of earth and rock with solemn ease—it had another thing coming. He anticipated the rocking of each step, adjusted for the push and pull of the earth beneath him, and soldiered on with heavy, jerking footsteps.

Just ahead, a pinprick of light was swiftly growing larger and larger, promising escape. He picked up the pace, still not giving the world enough of his effort or energy to actually run…at least not until the shaking became too much to ignore, jarring him first against one side of the tunnel and then the other. A stalactite of ice came crashing down just to his side, slicing a clean gash through the fabric of his cloak. There was just time enough for him to register a flash of pain, for him to realize it had made short work of his flesh as well, before he really kicked it into high gear.

The light ahead grew nearer, and he threw himself toward it, barely recognizing the changes in the walls and floor as the wet dirt became packed and hard, finally evening out into cement.

Rough stairs hewn from stone rose up from the ground and he took them three at a time without thinking twice—climbing ever higher, closer to the light.

The stairway ended sharply, still several feet from the opening above him, but to no matter. Lexaeus reached and strained until his fingers found purchase far above, gripping tight to the lip of the hole, the shaking of the world below giving him little time to test its strength before he heaved himself up. His biceps bulged at the strain, shoulders lodging complaint in the form of sharp needles of pain, but with one final jerk he was able to pull himself up out of the tunnel and into the light.

His vision blurred as his pupils constricted, sending his surroundings into strange, abstract smears of browns and whites. He clenched his eyes shut tight and steeled himself as best he could, anticipating the wreckage of the earthquake…but it never came. The shaking had stopped, it appeared—had stopped the instant he’d pulled himself up and out of the underground and come into contact with the world above.

He allowed himself a moment to lie there on the ground, every muscle tensed vigilantly, waiting for an aftershock to strike. After a minute, it became clear this wasn’t going to happen, and he slowly sat himself back up.

The world was _playing with him_. And he was not fond of being mocked.

Lexaeus took to his feet, realizing only then how thickly the reek of mildew and rot permeated his surroundings. He grimaced against the smell, face still screwed up against the sudden assault of light on his senses. The room he was in was cramped at best, its only occupants a dilapidated table and a worm-eaten chair missing three of its legs. Above him, a bare bulb buzzed sadly, a large fly intermittently tapping against it. The hole he’d pulled himself through was precisely that—a gaping maw where the black-and-white tiled linoleum had given way, the darkness below beckoning with a quiet rumble—though he found he didn’t much want to dwell on what sort of force could simply tear a chasm through feet of concrete and steel.

There was only one door in front of him, and it was only with a bruising impact from his shoulder that it gave way and swung open, so swollen with old water and ice it was. It opened easily enough after that, groaning sadly on its rusted hinges to reveal the darkened room beyond.

The smell of old wood bled into something yeasty and ancient, giving the air a distinctly yellow feel as he stepped foot into the bar. A thin sliver of light filtered through the old newspapers blocking out the window, revealing fat, lazy dust particles thickening the air. Barstools, long abandoned, sat molding in the darkness, gathered around a lighter patch of tiling where he assumed the bar itself had once stood.

Still the air was cold, his joints only beginning to thaw out from the underground, making it difficult to maneuver as cautiously as he’d like. The floor creaked in agony under his heavy footfalls, and from somewhere in the corner, a jukebox flickered back into life; a song stuttered back to full volume from where it had left off, filling the bar with a song that might’ve been familiar, were it not so distorted. He scanned the interior carefully—slowly—skin prickling with warning and unease.

“Get some new tricks,” he muttered to whatsoever might’ve been listening in, crossing past the stools to the faint light of the jukebox, bringing one powerful fist down against its top. He felt some inner mechanism give way, and the machine immediately fell silent with a weak, shuddering sound. “I’m unimpressed.”

Amid a swirl of dust, he pushed the front door open, screwing his eyes shut against the blinding light of the outside world. Snow crunched under his boots, a fair amount having accumulated since last he looked outside from the church. His breath plumed out in front of him, marking each exhalation with a cloud of fog.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he took careful inventory of his surroundings: fast food joint ahead of him, knee-high drifts of snow along the curbs, a street sign indicating he was at the corner of Sanders and Neely. The sooner he could get his bearings, the sooner he could create a mental map, the better.

A low rumbling noise from the north caught his attention, and it was only after another moment of scanning the streets that he pivoted to head toward it. On the wind, he thought he heard something else—a whistling of sorts, too guttural to be natural. But before him, a car had wrapped itself around a streetlight, littering the ground with shards of glass that glimmered like ice in the light. The hood had crumpled from the impact, wrinkling upwards to reveal the smoking engine beneath. He yanked the driver’s side door open, inspecting the inside for any sign of survivors.

He hoped very strongly that this was just another illusion painted by the world, because if anyone _had_ been driving the vehicle, their end had not been an easy one. With one heave of his shoulder, he pulled the large, weighty steel pipe from where it had impaled the headrest, ignoring the tacky liquid pooling in the crevices of the seat.

“Am I expected to be intimidated or thankful?” he asked the open air, appraising the heft of the pipe.

The wind answered with another howl, this time clearer and closer. Immediately he was reminded of the stone behemoth he’d found underneath the church, and he gripped the pipe tighter in his hand. There was nothing natural about this place, and he doubted highly that what he was hearing was someone’s pet.

He would’ve carried on his way, wary of what skulked in the streets, had he not heard the shout that accompanied the growling.

“ _HELP ME!_ ”

Lexaeus rocked on his heels, suddenly transported back to the dusty church floor, back to the icy tiles of the underground laboratory, the taste of blood and dread and _fear_ thick on the back of his tongue.

 _Zexion_.

With a speed that should’ve been impossible for someone his size, he tore across the street and through a wide intersection, pinpointing the source of the sounds with inhuman ease. He came onto the scene in time to see Zexion fall, two strange, sinewy _things_ rounding on him.

His first thought was that they were dogs, given their shape and the way their shoulder blades moved as they stalked. But something about them was _off_ , something was wrong. Their fur was singed dark, the skin showing from beneath was mottled with blisters and shiny scarring. As he charged forward, he could feel the _heat_ they radiated on his face, causing him to begin to sweat despite the snow, and he could smell smoke and ash.

“ _HEY!”_ he hollered at the full apex of his volume, his voice crashing through the scene like a roil of thunder.

One of the creatures turned on him then, its hackles raised as it sunk down on its haunches in a more dangerous stance. Its teeth jutted out in uneven, jagged rows, lips dripping thick ropes of foamy slobber as it growled. Above its muzzle, razed and ravaged with deep, scarred lacerations, its eyes glared—yellow and pupilless. It watched him for an instant, its snarl still low and rumbling in its chest, and then it lunged.

Had he still been wielding only the crowbar, perhaps there would’ve been a moment of apprehension. As it were, the heft of the metal pipe was considerably more reassuring. Lexaeus took one practiced swing and felt the beast’s bones collapse on first contact. It yelped as the force sent it careening backwards through the air, falling silent as it smashed into a nearby fire hydrant and crumpled to the ground, twitching once, then twice, before going still. Its mate whipped its head around, abandoning Zexion to pad over to its felled form, sniffing and nudging at its body. It turned back to glare unblinkingly at Lexaeus before its ears tucked back and it raised its muzzle to the air, baying a piercingly mournful howl that echoed as it sent a finger of chill down his spine.

It scampered to tuck itself into the safety of a dark alleyway as Lexaeus strode forward, kneeling down to where Zexion lay, clutching at his leg. Once he was sure the thing had run off, he turned his full attention to the Schemer, reaching down to get a better idea of his injuries. “Are you all ri—”

“Why didn’t you _help_ me?” There was a cold snap in Zexion’s voice, sharp enough that Lexaeus recoiled, almost as if he could feel its sting across his skin. Sharper still was the reproach in his eyes, twin pinpoints of ice glinting from behind a curtain of hair. “I was _calling for you_.”

“I-I didn’t—”

Zexion cut him off with a curt flick of his hand, slowly easing himself up onto his elbow before cautiously sitting upright. From this close, Lexaeus could see the slight tears in his clothing from the creatures’ teeth, could see telltale flashes of pale skin from beneath, but Zexion made short work of tugging his sleeves and pant legs down before any of his wounds could be seen. “Give me a minute,” he said, voice still rigid with chill, ignoring the hand Lexaeus proffered.

Sufficiently cowed, he knelt there in silence, feeling every inch a chastised child. Of course Zexion was right in his indignation: had he not wasted so much time exploring the church, had he not fallen for the world’s illusions, had he simply _walked out onto the street_ when he had the opportunity, he would’ve found him long before he could’ve been injured. It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way, back in the Garden…

He shook himself out of _that_ thought before it could take root.

“Where have you _been_?” Zexion set his palms flat on the snowy pavement, pushing himself back to his feet, shaky but unaccepting of aid. “Do you know how long I’ve been _looking for you?_ _Calling_ for you? This place is full of _monsters_ , and I don’t even have a viable _weapon_ to use.” 

“I—” he began again, but it seemed Zexion was having no part of it.

“I’ve never been so scared _in my life_ , and you can’t even come up with an _excuse_?” His brow was knit tight, eyes almost fever-bright from behind his bangs. Lexaeus was immediately taken aback—he’d _never_ seen the Schemer act in such a way in public, much less admit something as unflattering and _human_ as fear. The pit in his stomach deepened. It must’ve truly been _awful_ , if Zexion was willing to behave in such a way, foregoing his usual unaffected air. “Don’t leave me alone again,” he added, lowering his voice in a manner that was somehow more childish than confidential. “I don’t know _what_ I’d do.”

Silence fell between them, a heavy blanket that Lexaeus could feel constricting his chest. Too late, too late, too late…he was always _too late_ to do any good, wasn’t he? He made a point to look about the town as though checking for signs of any further threats, but really, he didn’t want to run the risk of meeting Zexion’s gaze again; there was something unnatural about the way his eyes had flashed, and it hurt too much to continue thinking about.

After a long moment, Zexion straightened himself back to his full height, adjusting his gloves and sleeves as best he could. “What have you found?” he asked, his tone steady and cool once more.

“Nothing you’ll like to hear,” he said, glad for the change in topic, quick to recount the details of the day. “I woke up in a church…of sorts.” 

“Of sorts.”

“It’s nothing like I’ve seen before,” Lexaeus admitted, turning his head this way and that, trying to get a feel for where they were, in reference to the building in question. “It was dark. _Very_ dark. Their texts are strange. Nonsensical, almost.” A chill ran down his spine as he remembered the lifeless eyes of the stained glass figures staring, _staring_ unendingly down at him. “I think the world is playing with us.”

Zexion scoffed, “You act as though it were a living thing.” 

“I suspect it might be.”

The Schemer quirked a brow, the cruel curve of his mouth slowly returning, but he said nothing else on the matter. “What else?”

The pang of uncertainty reemerged with the hook of Zexion’s smirk, making him regret opening his mouth in the first place. First he couldn’t get to him in time, _now_ he was rambling about the impossibility of a living, breathing world…he tightened his jaw and made a mental note to only report the objective facts from thereon out. “There was an underground tunnel leading away from the church. I followed it as far as it stretched, and that’s how I ended up here.” He wrestled with the last piece of information, doing his best to emend it in his head. “There were strange depictions on the walls. Religious stories, perhaps. I’m not positive. There was something… _wrong_ about them.” _They looked like us_ , he thought, but bit it back, wary of Zexion’s disbelief.

“ _Wrong?_ ” At the thought, Zexion reached up, raking his fingers through his hair. “Wrong _how?_ ”

“It’s…hard to say.”

Thoughtfully, Zexion watched him for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Lexaeus could all but see the cogs turning behind his eyes, had known him long enough to imagine the mental schematics being written and rewritten as he considered each and every step that could be taken. “That sounds intriguing,” he said finally, and for the first time since they’d reunited, it seemed he was back to his usual self, “Show me.”

“This way.” He nodded back towards the intersection he’d run through earlier, hefting the weight of the pipe onto his shoulder, just in case they ran into any more trouble. His footprints had yet to fill in with snow, and so it was easy enough to backtrack the way he’d come. Having found Zexion had brought an odd sort of serenity back to him, loosening the tension that had wound its way through his muscles before. Vexen would still have to be found, of course, and there was no doubt in Lexaeus’s mind that the Academic would be even _more_ irate to have been left to fend for himself for so long…but Zexion was—had always _been_ —his first concern. It was much easier to relax, now, if only slightly.

A howl rent the air, far-off but carried by the wind, and they both lifted their heads to get a feel for the distance separating them. “Nasty things,” Zexion commented amid the fading echo, lowering his gaze once more as he kept abreast of Lexaeus. “Have you run into many of them?”

“No. Not _those_ , anyway.” The thought of the wind screaming through the tunnel, the inhuman movement of muscle under stone, was still heavy on his mind. The way he could almost _read_ its eyes… “But we’ll have to be careful. There are bigger things in this world.”

“Oh I have no doubt in my mind.” A monumental gust of icy wind assaulted them, but even without his cloak, Zexion merely narrowed his eyes and carried on. “I wonder if they’re what destroyed the residents of this place.”

Lexaeus looked over his shoulder, “Destroyed?”

With a scoff, Zexion raised his eyebrows in a condescending manner. “We’ve been wandering this world for how long, now? And different sections of it, no less. Yet neither of us has seen hide nor hair of anything _remotely_ …” he shrugged after gesturing to the air for a moment, “Sentient, shall we say? Just those _things_. And yet we find ourselves surrounded by signs of life. Storefronts, automobiles, homes. Where did everyone go, I wonder?”

He turned back with a noncommittal grunt, steeling himself against the wind as he followed his own footprints. A slick of black ice caught him unawares, and he scrambled to keep his balance, managing only after a few seconds of humiliation. “Maybe they’re in hiding.”

“Maybe they’re in hiding,” the other parroted, a faint trace of laughter still evident in his voice. Another gust of wind blasted them from the south, threatening to knock them down. “Just like they were _hiding_ back in the Garden.”

Incredulously, he whirled to look at him, the cold and disbelief making the muscles of his face ache wickedly. “ _What?_ ”

“What?” Zexion watched him warily, folding in on himself to guard against the ice. “I said ‘Maybe they’re in hiding.’ I was _agreeing_ with you. Is that really so hard to believe?” 

“I thought…” But the look on Zexion’s face was resolute, and he was beginning to feel foolish again. “It must’ve been the wind,” he added under his breath, “We should be getting close.” The bar wouldn’t be too far off now, would it? The wind was making it much harder to advance through the streets now that it was in their faces, instead of at their backs. “Why are you so interested, anyway?” he asked, gritting his teeth as he cut through the gust. “Shouldn’t we be looking for Vexen?”

“Yes, because I’m _sure_ he’s _really_ pushing himself to the limit, trying to find _us_.” The snap was back in Zexion’s voice, ringing with something particularly malicious. Vexen was always a sore spot, and Lexaeus couldn’t help but feel that maybe his previous assessment had been wrong—maybe it would be _Zexion_ who would be more irate that _Vexen_ hadn’t found him first.

There was a _reason_ most other members refused missions with the two of them.

“And I’m _interested_ because I believe you’re right. Something’s _off_ about this world. Something unnatural. When I woke up, I found myself in the town historical society. The _dream_ of any and everyone sent out on a reconnaissance mission. I had time to skim through the history books and newspapers. Something bizarre happened here before. I wouldn’t doubt it if something bizarre was happening again.”

It was _his_ turn to ask, “What did you find?”

“Centuries and centuries ago, the residents of this world considered it something of a sacred place. I couldn’t _count_ the number of books recounting the ‘holy-this’ and ‘holy-that’…not to mention all of the _gods_ …” He shook his head slowly before pausing, his head tilting to the side in contemplation. “Are _you_ a man of faith, hmm? A believer in _divine intervention_?”

Brow furrowed, Lexaeus turned to look down at Zexion, unsure of how to answer the question.

“I’m sorry,” the Schemer interrupted his own query with a chuckle, regaining his easy pace as they trekked through the icy streets, “What an inappropriate question. Still…you _did_ wake up in a church.” The corner of his mouth hooked itself into a smirk sharp enough to cut through glass, “That must say _something_ about your character, don’t you think?” Before Lexaeus could respond, Zexion continued, “The residents of this world seem to believe in _one_ figure, in particular…I couldn’t make out a name, not from the older texts, but there was a lot of talk of how it would _come into_ the world.”

“Oh?”

He walked with his arms folded across his chest, head cocked faintly to the side as he thought. Lexaeus wondered how it was he was managing to traverse the streets so effortlessly when they were slicked with ice and ravaged by years of unfilled potholes. “They needed a child to host it. _Birth_ it, if you will. But it had to be a special child. One powerful enough to handle their _god_ and its _glory_.” Zexion spoke as though reading aloud, “So they found one. A young girl with strange, strange powers. She could make things move without touching them, could make things _happen_ just by _thinking_ them, could hurt people simply by _looking_ at them…”

Lexaeus paused, looking down to the other with a fair amount of disbelief. The unease in his stomach intensified, his muscles thrumming with some bizarre anticipation. “That…”

“Sounds fairly familiar, doesn’t it?” Zexion smiled without a trace of mirth, meeting the Hero’s gaze before shrugging, dropping his arms back down to his sides. “They burned her alive as part of a ritual, but it failed—and _horribly_. And so she sought out her revenge, plunging the world into darkness and madness.” Snickering under his breath, he added, “Which _also_ sounds fairly familiar, now that I’m saying it out loud…”

“You think this place _wants_ us, then?” he asked, unable to help but bristle at the thought. He’d had his own suspicions for a while, now, but hearing it from Zexion would give it more weight. “Wants to use our powers? For what _purpose_?” None of them were in any particular shape to _birth_ anything—god or otherwise.

“I don’t know _what_ this place wants,” Zexion responded. “All I _know_ is that this town appears to have a ‘type’. And that ‘type’ is _me._ ” He paused, taking a moment to glance across the way over to him, “Something you and it have in common, it would seem.” Zexion uttered a low, slow laugh, though whether it was due to his own humor or the shocked expression on Lexaeus’s face, it was not at all clear. “Now where is it you’re leading me, again?”

He was still fairly at a loss when he looked down to find his footprints had stopped. “The tunnel let out into a bar. It should be right…ah, here.” The door had been knocked shut by the wind, it had seemed, but he remembered the wide window taped over with newspapers. Though it was rusted on its hinges, he yanked the door back open, gritting his teeth against the earsplitting squeal it lodged in protest. “It should be in the back room,” he added as Zexion slid in.

But the bar they walked into was nothing like the one he’d come out of. The lights were on, dim though they were, casting a faint yellow light on the polished wood of a bar and its stools, catching in bottles of amber spirits lined up against the far wall. In the corner, the jukebox played quietly, almost reverently.

He was growing _very_ tired of this.

“Nice place,” Zexion commented, running a hand along the bar as he headed for the door to the break room. “Much nicer than where _I_ ended up, I’ll give it that much…”

“It didn’t look like this before,” he answered gruffly, hunching his shoulders as he followed after the Schemer. “It’s another trick.”

“And is _this_ a trick?” Zexion looked back to him with an audible sigh, leaning himself against the open doorway. He swept an arm in the direction of the room, expression dangerously unimpressed.

The room was perfectly neat, tables and chairs set up with flimsy plastic coverings. A clock on the wall blinked 12:00 midnight. And the floor was absolutely, unmistakably _pristine_ , not so much as a single tile out of place. 

Lexaeus felt something in him sag defeatedly. “No. _No_. There was a _hole_. Just here. I climbed out through it. It’s impossible that it wouldn’t…”

“A hole.”

“I’m telling you, there was a _hole_ here,” he growled, kneeling down and knocking at the ceramic with his knuckles, trying to find a hollow spot to no avail.

Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, Zexion took the moment to push his hair back out of his face before letting it fall back into place. “Well. It’s _gone_ now. _Whatever_ it was.” Despite having his back to him, Lexaeus could positively _feel_ the impatience radiating off of the smaller Nobody. “Glad we got to take this little walk, though. Very informative.”

Straightening back up, Lexaeus scowled to himself, glaring at the floor as though sheer force of will could bring it to open again. If he had still been in control of his powers, this wouldn’t have happened. If he’d found Zexion sooner, if he’d had his weapon, if…

“We should keep moving. I don’t want to waste more time in this place than we already have.” Zexion brushed past him, back through the bar and toward the front door. “I think we can return if we get to the historical society.” 

“You _think,_ ” Lexaeus repeated, following after him dourly.

Shrugging, he stepped back out into the snow. “I had to leave in a hurry. I think you’ve seen that this isn’t the most… _welcoming_ of situations. Without any means to protect myself, as loath as I am to admit it, fleeing was my only option.” His upper lip curled slightly in a grimace, “I didn’t get the best opportunity to take stock of my surroundings.”

It _did_ make sense that the RTC point would be somewhere _one_ of them entered into the world. It was as good a place to start as any, Lexaeus supposed, but he wasn’t particularly looking forward to navigating the town when it seemed so… _awake_. In addition to the things roaming the streets (and those that had been hiding below them), things were _changing_. The air had grown heavier with dread, rolling across the town in thick, foggy waves. He hardly felt _himself_ without Skysplitter, without his _powers_ , and even Zexion was behaving a little too skittishly, a little too inconsistently for his liking.

This place wanted to scare them, and it was doing a fairly good job of it.

“We should find Vexen first.” He had anticipated a groan or another adolescent eye-roll, but not the blind, childish stubbornness he was met with.

“ _He’s_ not looking for _us_.” Zexion spoke as though he was mere moments from seething. “He’s probably off poking at mold spores on the walls, looking for something to slice up. _I_ don’t want to spend anymore time here. _I_ want to leave. You can come with me, or you can keep blundering around this godforsaken place to try and wrench him away from whatever he’s doing.” 

Not for the first time that day, Lexaeus pulled back, surprised by the other’s behavior. This was not like Zexion, this was not like him at _all_ , and—

“Don’t…don’t leave me alone.” His voice lowered substantially, mouth pressing tight into a harsh line. “I don’t like it here. Something isn’t _right_ , and I don’t think I can make it back on my own. You _saw_ how those things surrounded me…can we just _leave? Please?_ ” He swallowed hard, and Lexaeus could see his throat working to get it down. “Don’t leave me alone here. Not again.”

For a brief, horrible second, he was Ienzo during those last days before the fall of the lab. Wide-eyed and _too_ energetic, flitting from one thought to the next with no discernable pattern; fidgeting too hard to stay still and thinking too fast to keep from tripping over his own words. Lexaeus felt something in his chest give an uncomfortable lurch against his ribs. It had been so long since he’d seen him scared, he’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

“We’ll go.” They could find Vexen on the way, perhaps, or send for reinforcements once they made it back to the Castle. Zexion was probably right—he usually _was_ —Vexen would likely be too tied up in his efforts to wring as much information from the world as possible to even _notice_ that they’d been separated, to begin with. He only hoped that, wherever he was, he didn’t have to cope with the same sort of monstrosities they had already gone up against. “Lead the way.”

Satisfied, Zexion reassumed his usual façade, unreadable as ever. “Unless I’m mistaken, we should be able to cut through here to get to the other side of town fairly quickly…there was a board with a map just outside of one of the buildings I passed. I gave it a rudimentary glance, but I think I remember…” He glanced about for a street sign, nodding as he took to the south. “We’ll just have to follow this for a while, and then it should be a straight shot.” He spoke more to himself than Lexaeus, but gestured with a shoulder all the same.

It was then, walking behind him, that he noticed the way Zexion was favoring his right leg. Another pang of _something_ jabbed his insides as he remembered he was injured. He’d acquired his own wounds, battling the gargoyle under the church, but Zexion was smaller and slighter. It would take him much longer to heal. “Take your time,” he advised. “There’s no use straining your wounds.”

“I’m fine. What’s done is done.” He didn’t bother to look over to the other as he spoke, simply walking through the wind, boots crunching in the snow. “I suspect I’ll endure worse before this is over.” 

Lexaeus frowned but said nothing more on the matter. Zexion was a like a cornered animal when he was hurt—scrappy and quick to bite. Instead, he changed the train of thought, thinking it safer. “I meant to ask you,” he began, watching him carefully. “What happened to your cloak?”

“That’s a long story,” Zexion sighed with a curt wave of his hand.

“You won’t be able to RTC without it.” The corners of his mouth tightened at the thought, unsure whether the aspect of running around to find a lost cloak was better or worse than the alternative.

Heaving another impatient breath, Zexion turned to regard him more fully. “It should still be in the historical society. I’m sure we’ll find it there before we leave. But thank you for your concern, it’s _touching_ , quite frankly.”

“And where _is_ the historical society, exactly?” he asked, making the conscious decision to ignore the Schemer’s barb. “I haven’t passed it, I know that much.”

“It’s in the northwest corner of town. Quite a ways from here, really… _quite_ a ways,” he added, pursing his lips as they came up on an unexpected sight.

In front of them, the world itself had simply…ceased to be. The concrete of the street crumbled off into nothingness, its steel supports reaching out towards the void like bony fingers, sending tiny chips of gravel sliding off into greyness. An abandoned car hung over the edge precariously, waiting for time or gravity or whichever came first. Lexaeus was struck with an intense wave of vertigo, taking a step back to put more distance between himself and the drop.

“Well,” said Zexion. “This is certainly out of the ordinary.” There was a beat of silence, “And _incredibly_ inconvenient.”

“How is that possible…?” Lexaeus took a tentative step forward, looking over the edge of the world. “How can it just… _end?_ ” He furrowed his brow as he watched the slow cascade of asphalt chunks tumble into the open air, “It’s almost as though it doesn’t want us going this way.” 

“ _What_ doesn’t want us going that way?”

He took one last look before turning around, heading back. “The world.”

Over his shoulder, Zexion offered him a particularly withering look. 

“It’s directing us,” he added, on the lookout once more as they passed the bar and continued north. “Leading us somewhere.”

“Mmm.” Zexion turned back just in time to catch a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, instinctively dodging whatever it was that had come barreling towards them. His gasp was jagged and weak in the icy air, but still Lexaeus heard it over the phlegmatic panting of the beast in front of him.

Heat emanated from the thing in waves thick enough to see, each of its footsteps hissing as the snow vaporized beneath its paws. Its tongue lolled out from its mouth, dripping thick, mucousy strands of saliva as it sized them up.

“I think it remembers _you_ ,” Zexion muttered, slowly circling around until he had tucked himself behind Lexaeus’s formidable bulk. “Maybe it’s angry you killed its friend.”

It lowered itself onto its haunches, preparing to launch toward them, teeth bared and chest rumbling with a predatory snarl. Before it could act, though, before another word could be said, Lexaeus brought the pipe down square on its head.

“Probably not so mad anymore.” Zexion peered around Lexaeus’s arm to the fallen creature, wincing at the sight.

“We should keep moving,” Lexaeus said simply, exhaling a heavy breath as he stepped over the carcass. “It looks as though we should be able to move west again up ahead.” He took up his stride once more, less than pleased at the number of fatalities he was racking up on this mission.

Zexion slid past him, rounding the corner onto the street that branched off to the left. “Mmm. You’re not going to like this,” he called back, though Lexaeus didn’t need to wait long before parsing his meaning. “Think we can jump it?” he asked with a drawl, looking out across the wide, gaping chasm in the street. Unlike the last one, the world seemed to continue on beyond the gap in cement, stretching out far past their line of vision. “I suppose you could always _throw_ me across,” he added, sneering all the while.

“We should keep going north,” Lexaeus grunted, growing impatient with the world’s mockery. “If you were able to get here originally, there _has_ to still be a way to return." 

“ _No_.” When he looked down, Zexion’s brow was knit, his expression difficult to discern. “I’m _not_ going back the way I came. There were too many of those _things_. I won’t do it. Not again.”

“ _I’m_ here now. It wouldn’t—”

“I _said_ we’re not going that way. So we’re _not_.” Zexion looked back to the other side of the gap, scowling at the world just beyond their reach. “There has to be another way.”

“Maybe we should locate Vexen, then. We won’t be able to make much progress if we don’t know the layout of the world, and perhaps he’s—”

Rounding on him, Zexion squared his shoulders, “ _Why_ are you so _intent_ on finding him? What good will _he_ do us now? He’s even more defenseless than _I_ am, without his powers, and he’ll only slow us down. We can worry about him _later_ , once we’ve found a way to _leave_.”

“Why are _you_ so intent on leaving him?” he countered. “We can’t return to the Castle without him, think of what the others would say.”

Eyes narrowed, mouth screwed shut tight, Zexion simply _looked_ at him for a moment, breathing slowly through his nose. “ _Fine_ ,” he said after a long while. “Fine. If locating him is _so_ important to you, then we’ll find him.” And before Lexaeus could so much as open his mouth to respond, Zexion turned toward the street ahead of them, cupping his hands around his mouth. “ _HELLO?”_ he shouted, voice cracking through the silence like a whip.

A moment passed. And then, from not too far-off, “ _ZEXION?!_ ”

The two paused as the echo crashed around them, giving the illusion of Vexen’s shrill voice filling the entire town. Lexaeus felt the words die in his throat at the speed of it all, the _convenience._ They had been walking these streets for a good while, now, had been making a great deal of noise too, as they dealt with the beasts. Yet never once had they caught wind of any sign of Vexen. But the very first moment Zexion called out to him…

Something wasn’t right.

The Academic’s gaunt form appeared on the other side of the chasm, emerging from a nearby side street. “ _WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU…_ ”

“Well that was considerably easier than expected,” Zexion drawled, setting his arms akimbo as he began walking towards the edge of the gap. Lexaeus watched him go, but there was a hot prickling on the back of his neck as he tightened with unease once more. “ _There_ you are. And here we were, beginning to worry. Thank heavens you’re all right.” His voice was flat, but there was an undeniable lilt of amusement lurking just under the surface, tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Now what is it that I’ve done, exactly, that warrants threatening bodily harm?”

From across the way, Vexen bristled, his hands clenched into bony fists at his sides as he seethed. And despite the yards of nothingness that separated them, the indignation on his face was _glaringly_ clear—particularly obvious was the tic in his left eye, giving his face a strange, uneven appearance. “ _You left me with that…that…THING!_ ” he exclaimed, words stilted with rage.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Zexion muttered under his breath, leaning in toward Lexaeus to better be heard. Then, louder, to Vexen, “How unkind of me…to abandon you before so much as _locating_ you. Truly, I am a monster.” Dropping his arms back to his sides, he heaved an impatient sigh, “But my moral inadequacies aside, _what_ are you on about?”

“What am I…are you _patronizing me?!_ ” Sputtering, Vexen knotted his hands in his hair, “You _left_ me to _die_ in the hospital! I was _attacked!_ And you just… _left!_ ”

“Hmph. That _does_ sound like something I’d do to him, doesn’t it?” he deadpanned.

“It _does_ ,” Lexaeus agreed, brow furrowed at Vexen’s implications.

All the same, Zexion gestured airily with a hand, already visibly exhausted with the interaction. “And so the first hints of senility come creeping in. I haven’t been anywhere _near_ a hospital since I woke up in this place. Once we left the Grey Room, I found myself in the—” 

Vexen was growing steadily more irate as time went on, and it was then that he cut Zexion off entirely. “The historical society.”

“I…” At that, Zexion stopped, his haughty expression wavering for an instant. It was hard to tell from his vantage point, given the discrepancy of their heights, but Lexaeus thought he saw something like unease flicker its way across his face. “How did you know _that?_ ” His posture changed immediately, back going ramrod straight as he pulled his shoulders back.

“Because. You. _Told me_.” His words were taut with fury, jaw clenched to the point of contorting his face further.

For a short moment, the only sound between the three of them was the whistling of the wind, bringing with it the faintest hint of a thunderclap in the distance. Zexion turned back to Lexaeus, eyes searching his for only an instant. He didn’t like being caught off his guard, he knew, but the dangers of this world seemed to finally be sinking in for him. “This is the first time I’ve seen you since we left,” he reiterated, his snide, childish mask firmly back in place. “And we’ve only just found _each other_.” He nodded curtly in Lexaeus’s direction, “Don’t tell me you’re _seeing things_.”

“This place,” Lexaeus started, the rumble of his voice silencing the bickering Nobodies instantly. “…there’s something _wrong_ with it. It plays tricks on your mind, tries to frighten you.” 

“I’m not _frightened!_ ” Vexen huffed, but Zexion lifted an eyebrow at the tense cracking in his voice.

Ignoring the muffled _“Sure_ ” Zexion snickered to himself, Lexaeus glanced around to take a more careful inventory of their surroundings. “We should regroup. There’s safety in numbers.” Without another word, he turned on his heel, following the break in the earth south, deflated (but not at all surprised) when he found it simply continued on past the nearby line of storefronts, widening until it seemed that the world itself simply _ended,_ swallowing up pieces of buildings and leaving bricks to crumble into the air. “This way won’t work.”

“What do you mean _it won’t work?_ There _has_ to be a way for us to walk around—that’s how cities _work_ ,” Vexen snapped, still indignant from his conversation with Zexion.

To the north, there was a large building sprawling out behind a flimsy chain link fence. It extended well beyond the point where Vexen was standing, so it only stood to reason… “The world ends,” Lexaeus mumbled absently, already beginning to walk toward the fence.

“The world _ends?_ ” Vexen repeated disbelievingly.

Zexion turned to glance over his shoulder, offering him a withering look as he joined Lexaeus, “It has the _quaintest_ habit of doing that. Maybe if you’d been doing your job and exploring, instead of conversing with imaginary things, you’d have noticed as much.”

“It looks like the upper floors should be unaffected.” He pushed past the rusted fence entrance, stepping up to the large double doors of the building. “They’re close enough that they should likely connect. We can meet halfway through.”

“ _No_.” Even the echo of Vexen’s answer was firm as they both turned back to him. His arms were folded defiantly across his chest, but the action made him seem somehow smaller than he was— _frailer_. “If you had seen what _I’ve_ seen in this place, you’d have little desire to go slinking around dark buildings. _You two_ can come _here_. Then we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Years of experience had taught Lexaeus that there was no arguing with Vexen once he’d made up his mind. _Zexion_ , however, seemed bent on giving it his best effort. “And if _you_ had seen what _we’ve_ seen, you probably wouldn’t want to be skulking around the streets on your own.”

“I haven’t seen _anything_ in the streets—” As though on cue, an eerie howl rent the air, growing louder and louder until it drowned out the wind entirely. The three all turned toward the sound, though it quickly became impossible to parse from its warped echoes. “…Meeting halfway _would_ provide ample opportunity to collect further reconnaissance.”

“Yes,” Zexion said, watching as Vexen all but threw himself through the doorway to his left, disappearing into the dilapidated old building. “Yes it would.” He glanced behind himself momentarily, and as Lexaeus followed his line of sight, he could almost swear he saw a shadow of something creeping through the alleyway. “We should hurry up and get him out of here as soon as possible, don’t you think? This place is starting to make him lose his grip. Well…” he rolled his eyes, turning back to look up at the Hero, “More than _usual_ , at least.”

“The Superior won’t be pleased if we return without collecting enough information.”

“Then the Superior should’ve been more careful when deciding who to send.” With that, Zexion swept past him, pulling open the swollen door with a grunt. “Shall we, then?” he asked, offering Lexaeus a humoring look before stepping across the threshold.

After one last look to the shadows retreating across the bricks, Lexaeus nodded. “We shall.”


	6. Remodeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Body horror, blood.

The moment he stepped foot into the apartment complex, decades of old dust and sediment kicked up from the flooring, swirling about the air like shapeless grey ghosts. He coughed dryly, waving a hand in front of his face as though it would help.

“Such a ridiculous idea…” he muttered to himself, narrowing his eyes, still tattooed snow-bright from wandering the streets, trying to focus on the advert plastered to the wall nearest him. “ _Welcome to Blue Creek Apartments!”_ it proclaimed in an antiquated typeface, _“The Most Peaceful Stay in Silent Hill._ ” Vexen scowled bitterly at the sign’s impudence—he had seen plenty since arriving, and he doubted wholeheartedly that the world was capable of anything so benign as _peace_. “Those fools better not keep me waiting…I’m in _no_ mood.”

“We’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

It was all he could do to keep from jumping outright; the voice had rung out so clearly and so _close_ that it was almost as though Zexion was right next to him…

As his eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior of the lobby, his surroundings began to take shape around him. The small office just to his left, the laminated map hanging to his right, the precipitous drop directly ahead of him— _oh_. The fissure that had separated their sides of the town out on the street hadn’t been deterred by the old chain link fences or **NO ENTRY** signs, but had torn through the buildings as well. It had widened, it seemed, and _deepened_ , if possible. And there, standing several yards across the way, Zexion and Lexaeus regarded him with varying degrees of amusement.

“Terribly sorry this has all been such an _inconvenience_ for you,” Zexion continued, the curve of his smirk visible even from that distance, “If you’re really in such a rush for company, I believe the idea of me being _thrown_ across the chasm was brought up earlier…perhaps we could try that?” He and Lexaeus exchanged one of those maddening looks between themselves—the sort that suggested they were snickering over something Vexen wasn’t entirely privy to.

He bristled, the mere _sound_ of Zexion’s voice filling him with hot prickles of indignant frustration. “Too risky,” Vexen answered snidely. “There’s a chance you’d actually _make it_.” Zexion didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to; his sneer spoke volumes.

“Meeting halfway is still the best idea,” Lexaeus piped in, exploring the whole of their lobby in a few long strides. From his vantage point, it was difficult to see, but Vexen watched as he neared and inspected a decaying metal skeleton of sorts—what had once probably been the staircase to the upper floors. “Unless there’s a way around?”

All it took was one glance, and Zexion was off. There were few things more unnerving than the pair’s strange, unspoken communication. The Schemer disappeared down a corridor that branched off to the north, the sounds of his soles gradually fading as he strode off.

“How does he know where to look?” Vexen asked, watching the space Zexion had only just inhabited, still full of some strange, sinking suspicion.

Lexaeus only shrugged in response. “He probably noticed something when we first entered. He’s observant.”

“Duly so.”

From across the gap, he afforded Vexen an impatient glance. He reached up with one hand and tested the strength of the broken staircase, and even from that distance, Vexen could see the cogs turning in his mind as he tried to determine the safest way to continue. 

“He really _was_ with me, you know,” he said after a moment, eyes narrowed and lips drawn in a taut line. “Back in the hospital. I don’t know _how_ he could’ve gotten across town so fast, but…”

“Vexen.” Lexaeus’s voice was as solid and immovable as he was, and when he turned back to him, it was obvious at once he was in no mood for this discussion. “He has no memory of it. _I_ found him shortly after I woke up. It’s not possible.”

“It’s not _plausible_. But implausibility aside—”

“I know you don’t want to consider this,” he began, and Vexen found himself cringing before the next words were even out of his mouth, “But this world uses _illusions_ to _frighten_ outsiders. I’ve been witness to a few, myself. It doesn’t mean that you’re—”

“That I’m _what?_ ” he snapped. “Going _crazy?_ _Zexion_ would certainly have you believing so.”

Lexaeus held his gaze for a moment longer, before turning back to the staircase, testing its founding to the wall. Only seconds later, Zexion reappeared, preceded by a heavy wave of dust. “It cuts all the way through the courtyard,” he informed them, shaking of his head. “There’s no way to get across on this floor, it’s difficult to tell how far it reaches.”

“I still think the upper floors will be unaffected,” Lexaeus answered, though Vexen had to strain his ears to hear him. The two had the most _infuriating_ habit of acting as though they were the only two in a room. “If not the second floor, then the others. Of course…there’s no saying how _stable_ they’ll be, given the state of the foundation.”

“We’ll have to tread lightly.” There was a pause, and then a low chuckle from Zexion. “Easier said than done for _some_ of us, I know…”

“Are you two just going to stand there and flap your gums, or are we going to _accomplish something here?!_ ” At the outburst, both of the others turned to face him, faces both entirely unreadable. 

It was Zexion who spoke up first, walking up to the very edge of the chasm between them, standing arms akimbo as he cocked his head to the side. “Are we taking too long to _rescue you?_ ” The corner of his mouth turned down, “Maybe _now_ you’re beginning to understand why you don’t simply _tag along_ on missions that weren’t _assigned to you_.”

Vexen stood ramrod straight, brows drawn tightly together in affront, “ _Excuse_ me?”

Zexion had opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, Lexaeus set a heavy hand on his shoulder, shaking his head curtly. “We should get moving,” he muttered, nodding towards the remnants of the metal staircase reaching up to the upper floors. “If another tremor starts…”

From across the rift, Zexion shot Vexen one last, lingering look before turning on his heel. “Lead the way,” he sighed breezily, the saccharine feign almost enough to make Vexen consider hurling a rock in his general direction. “Before he loses his grip on reality any _further_ ,” he added, only just loud enough to be heard across the divide.

Fuming, he watched as they both clambered up the decrepit old staircase, Zexion getting a boost from Lexaeus. And even through his anger, he had to admit he was fairly surprised the rusty thing didn’t simply collapse under their sheer _bulk_. But a moment later, he found himself alone in the darkness of the lobby, even the sounds of his teammates’ footsteps overhead dulling into silence.

He folded his arms across his chest, dourly surveying the wreckage surrounding him. As frustrating as the two were, he wasn’t foolish enough to deny that Lexaeus and Zexion were terrifyingly adept as a team. It would likely only be a matter of minutes until they found a way to cross over from one building to the other…then they would be able to continue on this charade to find the RTC point and get _out_ , once and for all. There would be time to write up Zexion’s _numerous_ insubordinations later.

And write them up he _would_.

Vexen took to pacing the floor before he’d even realized it, the behavior so deeply ingrained in his unconscious that it might as well have been automatic. Each step stirred up another plume of thick, gritty dust from the floor, thick with plaster and what he could only assume was asbestos from the ceilings. He waved a hand in front of his face and coughed the dirt from his lungs, glowering all the while. 

There were only four remaining rooms on the floor, save for the small alcoves marked overhead with **STAIRS** signs; he had the sinking suspicion that if he glanced over the edge of the rift, he’d find what was left of many of the others snagged on rocky outcroppings. All four rooms were locked, he found, not that he had any pressing desire to rummage through the rubble. _Particularly_ since the other two would be joining up with him shortly.

He resumed his pacing. The first thing he would do once they were together again would be to give Zexion a good, firm _shake_. Just because he was older now, smarter now, didn’t mean he wasn’t still child enough for him to reprimand. He was, after all, only Number _VI_. As far as the Founding Members were concerned, he was little more than a _whelp_. One didn’t just _abandon_ a senior member in the middle of a mission, in the middle of a _dangerous altercation_ , no less. The fact that Lexaeus was so readily willing to write off and accept Zexion’s lies was no less insulting. Still, he couldn’t be surprised—Zexion and Lexaeus were creatures almost symbiotic in nature. And Vexen had fallen prey to the child’s wiles once, a lifetime ago. He was very good at reeling people in. _Too_ good.

When he came back to his senses, he found he’d cleared an entire strip of hallway of dust, his boots and cloak having cut a swath through the debris from all of his walking. They should’ve _returned_ by then, he thought, and was pleasantly relieved when he heard the first telltale noises from nearby. 

“ _Finally_ ,” he mumbled to the air, turning expectantly towards the nearest staircase. “Well, you two certainly took your time…” Vexen began, unable to maintain his usual air of stern disapproval for too long, the aspect of no longer being alone _so_ tempting in its implied safety.

But no one descended from the stairs. He furrowed his brow, sticking his head into the alcove, squinting to try and make out any shadowy movements from the stairs overhead, but there was simply _nothing_. From that vantage point, turned fully towards the staircase, he realized with an uncomfortable twisting of his gut that the sounds he’d heard were _not_ , in fact, coming from anywhere in the hall. They were coming from the rift in the earth between the buildings.

Vexen closed his eyes as the realization hit him, slowly exhaling. His breath turned to a cloud of fog around him, fanning out in the cold like the dust had. He didn’t want to investigate the sounds coming from the chasm—he did _not_. He’d had enough of this madness, had his fill of the world reaching into the darker recesses of his brain and pulling out the spindly things of his nightmares. 

Yet his feet carried him to the edge of the rift again, the vomitous bite of fear on the back of his tongue _nothing_ compared to the screaming curiosity of his mind. Carefully— _apprehensively_ —he peered over the precipice, steeling himself for what would come next. And for a moment, there was nothing but the darkness.

It wasn’t until his eyes began adjusting to that darkness that he realized how very, _very_ poor his decision had been. There was something gleaming several yards down, shining like a tiny reddish flame, and as he focused on it, he noticed the others. Tens, _hundreds_ of small, bright flickers from deep within the fissure. Vexen’s first impulse was to assume that they were some strange leftovers from the rooms that had been claimed by the void during the last earthquake, that a mass of shiny, reflective things had been claimed by the hungry earth.

And then one _blinked_.

They were _eyes_ , he realized with a sudden and horrible clarity, eyes of predators no less—the kind that shone even in pitch-blackness. As it dawned on him, he noticed the wide, blown-out pupils, the way they were grouped together. The way they were _all_ riveted on him. _Watching_.

He took a slow step backwards, then two, then three, before turning and entering the nearest alcove, slowly ascending the stairs in as quiet a manner as he could. All the while, he listened for any other sound that might signal something approaching him from behind.

If he’d had a pulse, it would’ve been choking him. And not for the _first_ time, during this damned mission. When he came to the door of the second floor, he opened it brusquely, closing it securely behind him. He scrambled to turn the tiny locking mechanism of the doorknob, the rational part of his mind knowing full well that it would do little good against _anything_ this world could think to throw at them, but the blinding fear of his lizard brain drowning it out. For a moment he stood there, hands firmly pressed against the door as he collected himself. There were no more sounds, no vibrations of nearby footsteps, and so he allowed himself to hope that _whatever_ had been lurking in the abyss—because the time for believing he was hallucinating was now far, _far_ behind him—had no intention of leaving its home.

As he turned around to the landing of the second floor, he was surprised to find that the mustiness and rot that had so saturated the entrance had entirely disappeared. It was almost as though he had stepped foot into another building, into another _world_ , so drastic was the change. 

Lexaeus’s original assessment had proven correct: whatever anomaly that had torn the ground asunder had left this floor completely untouched—there wasn’t so much as a single crack running along the walls of the corridor. The paint was cream-colored and offset by deep mahogany wainscoting, ornate brass fixtures casting a warm sort of light that made the burgundy carpeting almost seem to _glow_. It was a drastic change from the first floor, and while the world had already shown itself to be fanged, he couldn’t help but feel at ease just then.

At least here there was no rattling laughter, no surgical tools, no howls or tremors or eyes peering through the darkness. 

He shuddered despite himself, infinitely glad that Zexion and Lexaeus weren’t there to witness it. They already seemed to think him mad.

And still, the thought of Zexion was filling him with something prickling and cold. The Schemer was unpleasant on the best of days, nigh _terrifying_ on the worst, but something about the utter _contempt_ he’d been treating him with…Vexen couldn’t help but feel that there was something more going on with him. The way he’d acted in the hospital garden had been strange to say the least, and while their relationship had always been… _tenuous_ , the manner in which he’d simply _abandoned_ him in the face of that creature…

Only to show up walking alongside Lexaeus, his usual swagger and smirk firmly in place. It was suspicious, if nothing else.

He wondered how much Zexion _knew_ about this world, precisely. How he’d lost his cloak but found _both_ of his teammates. How he hadn’t seen the monster suspended only inches from his face. How he’d found Lexaeus so quickly after abandoning him—and he _had_ abandoned him, Vexen knew, knowledge that was almost painful in its certainty.

If this was a game Zexion was playing, it wasn’t an amusing one.

But dwelling would do him little good until the others were able to reach him. There was no sign of a connecting hall, much less _anything_ that would lead him to believe the other building could be reached from this floor. Still, he called out to be sure. “ _V? VI?_ ” There was no response—not even the echo of his own voice. Strange.

But this wasn’t an effective expenditure of his time, nor his mental resources. The hospital had been terrifying in its own right, the streets slick and fraught with their own dangers, but this was neither of those places. There was light here, and thick carpeting, and the lingering smell of domesticity. The things in the crevice…well, they were still downstairs, and had yet to make any attempts at following him up. All worlds had a vein of darkness running through them, perhaps he’d simply been unfortunate enough to wake up in the middle of this one’s. Perhaps they _all_ had.

Immediately in front of him stood a door with a burnished nameplate. “ **205** ,” it read, the family name below it too worn by time to decipher. He moved closer, leaning forward to discern whether anything was moving on the other side, but was greeted only by silence. It was just as well—under normal circumstances, being spotted by a denizen of a world was always of utmost concern, yet he had the lingering suspicion that there _were_ no people here, and that the only residents of this place had already gotten a good, long look at them.

The knob stuck uselessly under his palm. At that point, he wasn’t sure why he had expected anything _less_. For a world that seemed so abandoned and decrepit, there certainly were a _ridiculous_ number of functioning locks. It would’ve been impressive, had it not been so _frustrating_.

His train of thought was interrupted by a small, unimportant sound just behind him. Vexen turned, and while he was almost positive it was nothing more than a trick of his eye and tired mind, he could almost swear he watched as one of the apartment doors opened. It was only just barely ajar, and it must’ve been from the moment he’d entered the hall, but he couldn’t shake the initial thought that _something_ had pulled it open to get a look at him.

“Hello?” he called, the lingering uncertainty in his voice overshadowed by a cold mask of impatience. The apartment number was “ **201** ,” the family name eerily absent as well, and it was cautiously that he pushed the door the rest of the way open. He wasn’t surprised when there was no reply, but he made no move to close the door as he stepped in, lest he need to make a quick escape.

It was only upon crossing the threshold that he was struck by the gravity of what he was looking at. The hallway had been beautifully kept, but cramped all the same; yet the apartment spread out in front of him was nothing short of _palatial_. There was no _possible_ way this was only one unit. Vexen paused to crane his head out the door once more, brow furrowed deeply as he privately measured the distance to the next unit’s door. It wasn’t logical—it wasn’t _rational_. Even given his most generous of estimates, the apartment was still too big on the inside. There had to be tens of square feet unaccounted for…perhaps even _a hundred_ , and that was taking the end of the hall into account. Something was amiss. Comforting light or no, he knew he’d have to tread carefully.

If nothing else, it was a beautiful setup; there was a moment where he had the inane notion to take off his boots to keep from tracking grime across the pristinely white carpeting. But he ignored it, of course. _No one_ lived there, no one was there with him. There wasn’t even the telltale roiling in his stomach that he’d dealt with in the hospital or alone on the streets.

The walls were the same faint cream color of the hallway, the crown molding the same rich mahogany, the vaulted ceiling bearing heavy brass light fixtures like bunches of some alien fruit. The windows on the far wall were tall and draped with heavy burgundy velvet, only thin rays of sun peeking through the gaps.

To the left, the carpeting gave way to marble tile as he walked into the kitchen, unnerved to find the table set, as though for a meal. He picked up a crystal glass and examined it, setting it back down after a moment. The cupboards and pantry yielded boxes and cans and bottles galore, the refrigerator fully stocked and humming with chill. All the signs of life, and yet…

A quiet squeal startled him from his thoughts, and he carefully walked back out into the living area. There was the faintest sound of a needle scratching, and then, from somewhere he couldn’t quite pinpoint, the soft melody of a piano sonata began to float throughout the apartment.

Maybe he _wasn’t_ alone, after all.

The living area branched off into two separate arms, and he took the one closest to himself first. Picture frames lined the walls of the hallway, but whether it was due to exhaustion or something more sinister, all of the photographs displayed were far too out of focus to be recognized. He blinked hard to clear his eyes of any film or haze, but even _then_ there was no way for him to discern exactly what it was he was looking at. The longer he stared, the more abstract the images became, swirling into meaningless shapes. It was enough to trigger a sharp pain between his eyes, threatening to become something more massive. Vexen took the hint, turning away from the gilded frames. 

He pressed on, the door at the end of the hall standing wide open to reveal a large four-poster bed. The master bedroom, he thought, and slowly walked in. There were secondary doors that most likely led to bathrooms or closets, but their handles were stuck firmly in place. A gargantuan bay window spread across the expanse of the far wall, draped like those in the main living area. For a moment, Vexen entertained the idea of opening the curtains and stealing a glimpse of what part of town the unit overlooked, but his eyes had only just begun to recover from the painful brightness of the snow before he’d made the questionable decision of trying to make sense of the strange photographs just outside the door. Well…that, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was prepared to handle the sight of more gruesome, fleshy things shambling their way through the streets.

Along the opposite wall rested a polished vanity, its surface covered with an array of silver bottles and ornate brushes. He tried a drawer, only to find it too was locked. Groaning to himself, Vexen took to turning one of the bottles over in his hand, taking an apprehensive sniff from the lid; the bottle seemed to contain a perfume—spiced and heavy, enough to make his eyes begin to water. He went to set it back with the others, but felt every muscle in his body seize as he noticed a dark shape in the mirror. Someone was sitting on the bed behind him.

Gathering his resolve, Vexen whirled around before he could talk himself out of it. But the room was empty…just as it had been from the moment he walked in. There was no one there, the bed was vacant, the sheets made up perfectly without so much as a hint of a wrinkle. He looked to the mirror again to reinforce what he already knew, before promptly exiting the bedroom.

He wasted no time in getting himself back out into the main hallway, pulling the door to apartment 201 shut firmly behind him. It didn’t mean anything. He was tired, he was still coping with impossible amounts of bizarre stimuli and stress, and it was likely that his eyes were still somehow trying to recover from the transition from the snow-bright landscape of the streets to the darker atmosphere of the apartment building. It was nothing to dwell on.

Vexen reached up to knead at his temples with the pads of his fingers, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. He made a mental note to thank Saïx _personally_ for this assignment. Only…

Oh, _damn_ it all. He _would’ve_ had room to complain, had it _been_ his mission. He sighed a tired breath as Zexion’s earlier barb cut through the fog in his head—it _hadn’t_ been his assignment; he had _opted in_ to this madness. When he had seen Lexaeus and Zexion slated to leave in the Grey Room, he had gone right along.

Why? _Why_ had he felt the inane urge to follow them?

The answer was Oblivion, of course. There was still so much to plan, so much to implement, so much to prepare…and with the three of them, the _sharpest_ of the Organization’s ranks, he had assumed the reconnaissance would have taken an afternoon, at worst. There should’ve been _plenty_ of time to discuss replicas and laboratory necessities. Esoteric though they were, standoffish though they were, V and VI were still his _peers_. He had had so much to discuss with them, so many ideas worth further discourse.

And yet. There he was, couched away in a dark hallway, waiting for the others to come and carry him off. The world had proven too much for him, too much for his _mind_ , and…

Oh, like hell it had.

He shook himself out mentally before turning to inspect the rest of the hallway, just as silent and still as he’d left it. The doors to the rooms in front of him were still firmly locked, budging barely an inch even when he threw his full weight into them. Absolutely nothing. It would figure that Lexaeus was on the other side of the rift, wouldn’t it? Vexen privately bemoaned the number of stuck doors he and Zexion would be able to barge through without a second thought.

There was a strange, sinking sense of déjà vu when he turned to examine the next two closest doors and found one cracked open. Had it been standing ajar before? Vexen didn’t think so, but then again, he didn’t have any particular memory of it being _shut_ , either. “ **202** ” stood out in bold, shined to a reflective sheen on the nameplate. It was odd, but nothing supernatural, and it wasn’t as though there was anything else to do while he waited for the oafs to come and find him. Time he spent sitting around fretting and sulking over the situation was time wasted, after all. He would just continue through the hall, peeking into what units he could, gathering whatever bits of information made themselves readily available. And if something out of the ordinary occurred, well he could just leave. It didn’t mean that he was _scared_ , and it certainly didn’t mean that he was _losing his mind_.

Vexen pushed the door to 202 open, and stepped into the exact same apartment he’d only just left.

So much for _that_ theory.

A sliver of his tongue poked out to wet his lip as he gaped, throat and chest tight with confused apprehension. Were those the imprints of his own boots on the carpeting? All he’d have to do was slowly press his foot down onto the mark to compare them, but he knew immediately—and impossibly—that there was no need.

He raised his hand to his mouth, pressing his knuckles to his lips as he thought. The gesture was comforting in its familiarity, but it did little to quell the confusion whirling the cogs in his head. He had walked into apartment 201 and explored a few of its rooms. He thought he’d seen something in the master bedroom’s mirror, and so he’d left out of instinct. He’d walked back into the hall. He’d entered _a different apartment_ , 202. And he’d ended up _precisely_ where he’d first entered 201.

Illusions, Lexaeus had said. The town had been using _illusions_ against them. It seemed more likely than the spontaneous misfiring of _all_ of his senses. And as much as he hated to admit it, it would expect how Zexion hadn’t seen the _thing_ back in the hospital.

But he’d spent the past decade of his life tormented and tricked by illusions of a different sort. At least there was nothing corporeal waiting for him with outstretched claws. He left the door to the apartment open again, allowing himself an exit as well as a way for the other two to find him, were they to finally find their way into the building.

Vexen strode forward, unconsciously stepping _over_ the imprint in the carpeting. Upon crossing that threshold, the same, gentle piano song filled the air, its notes faintly muted from distance. This time, he crossed the room to the heavy drapes against the back wall, throwing them open wide to slake his curiosity. The sudden burst of light was enough to send a bolt of pain through his eyes, causing him to recoil with a shout—not entirely unlike some gaunt, melodramatic vampire. He squinted his eyes against the blinding white light, using a hand to shield his face until he felt his pupils had been given enough time to adjust.

When finally he felt adequately prepared, he neared the windows once more, peering out into the world beyond the glass. Beneath his feet, the world began to spin as though it had been knocked upon its axis, a spinning wave of vertigo threatening to take him down to his knees.

Outside the old apartment complex, there were no monsters, there was no titanic rift in the earth, there was no _snow_. There was only sunlight, only flowers, only cobblestone and brick. And there, on the horizon—the faint shapes of turrets and ramparts, the silhouette of the Castle so suddenly familiar, his confusion was completely swallowed up by awe. “It can’t be…” he murmured, voice lost somewhere in the hollow of his throat. “It’s not possible…” And truly, it _wasn’t_.

Because Radiant Garden had fallen long, long ago. And yet…there it was, within an arm’s reach from him.

His extremities began to grow weak, even as he stood; had he been in possession of the proper faculties, Vexen would’ve wondered quite frankly why he hadn’t _already_ fallen to his knees. Without thought, his hands scrambled to the windows’ frames, pulling and prying at the locks keeping them closed. It was only a pane of glass, a thin pane of glass, separating him from the smells and sounds of the Garden. Only an inch of glass, maybe even less, and it was all _right there_.

None of the locks budged, even as the fabric of his gloves strained and frayed beneath his skin. The friction seemed enough to snap him back into himself, bringing him back to his senses, if only just slightly. It was just another illusion of the town. It _had_ to be. 

Still, he leaned closer to the glass, all but pressing his face against it. A preposterous gesture, childish and desperate, but it had been so long. So very, _very long_.

“What is this…” he said, still barely more than a whisper. “Why is this happening?”

Directly beside him, only inches from his ear, someone sighed as if in response.

Vexen started immediately, reeling backwards with enough force to send himself careening into the nearby sofa. When he righted himself again, chest heaving with surprise, he found to his great dismay, that he was still alone. There was no one else at the window, no other body pacing through the apartment. Only him.

“I’m growing… _quite_ tired of this.” He frowned, the expression carving deep lines into his face as he cast one last, longing look out the window. With a frustrated jerk, he straightened out his cloak and pulled himself away from the windowsill.

 _Illusions_. What irony. He made his way down the hallway he’d traveled before, pausing only momentarily this time to try and make sense of the blurred photographs on the wall. Still nothing discernible—not that it was much of a shock. This time, he only poked his head into the master bedroom, giving it a cursory once-over.

Nothing had appeared to change, since last he’d been in the room, but he had little interest in catching sight of shadows moving in the mirror again. Instead, he walked down the other arm of the hall, approaching the door he had earlier ignored. It was shut, bearing no striking features, but he thought perhaps the room beyond was the source of all the music. He pressed his ear to the wood, and the tinkling of piano keys seemed to grow louder, just as he suspected. Much to his chagrin, the knob stuck fast. It was locked, he thought, the handle’s keyhole affirming it in his mind.

He threw his arms up in frustration, stalking back into the main living area. This was all an exercise in futility. The others should’ve _found_ him by now! He crossed past the kitchen, but was brought to pause once more at the distinct sound of glasses clinking. “This again…”

Pursing his lips, he stepped into the kitchen, hands on his hips as he glanced from one corner of the room to the other. Nothing. Of course. But if he stopped, if he _really_ trained his ears, he thought he could hear the click of soles against the tile, the faint sounds of glass on glass, of forks scraping plates.

“Pardon me for interrupting,” Vexen sneered to the open air, shaking his head before crossing out into the main hall again, pulling shut the door to apartment 202 behind him. 

As though on cue, directly across the hall, the door to 203 clicked open. Vexen watched this happen, his eyes disbelieving slits, upper lip curled into a scowl that was nothing short of _seething_. “A game, is it, then?” he asked the door, angrily grinding the inner flesh of his cheek between his teeth. “A game. Well. Excellent.” He folded his arms across his chest, glaring with enough intensity to set the door aflame. But still it stood, cracked only a few inches, beckoning him with a sliver of plush white carpeting.

“ _ZEXION?”_ he called out, cringing again at the strange, unnatural way his voice refused to echo down the long corridor. “ _LEXAEUS?_ ” The only reply was silence, as he knew it would be. Much as he hated to admit it, he thought the others were onto something—this world, whatever else it might have been, was _sentient_. And it had plans for him. Trying to counter that, trying to get around it, was a dangerous proposition.

It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that Vexen pushed the door of 203 open fully, and stepped back into the apartment he had only just exited moments before.

He huffed a breath as he walked into the living area. “Almost beginning to feel like home…” he commented snidely, turning first to examine the kitchen. There must’ve been _some_ reason for this, some purpose to the impossibility of it all. Before he could dwell too much on that thought, he was given pause by the spread in front of him. In both 201 and 202, the kitchen had been pristine; table set for dinner, pantry neatly stocked, everything polished to a glistening shine. But now, as he stood, his entire figure starkly contrasted by the bright white of the flooring underneath him, the differences began to emerge.

The glasses on the table were dark and smudged with fingerprints and lipstick smears, the plates covered in the remnants of a meal. The tablecloth was stained with something too brightly red to be blood, too thick to be juice. When he ran his finger along a cupboard, it came away with a fine film of dust. And most notable of all, the tap was running weakly, pattering incessantly against the collection of silverware thrown into the sink. “This is new…” Vexen reached over to turn the faucet, but no matter how he twisted it, the water refused to stop. It grew no weaker nor stronger, despite his efforts, drip-dropping away into the sink.

On a whim, he opened the pantry, only to find most of the food gone, many of the boxes open and stale. Things had toppled over, oatmeal and cereals littering the shelves with grainy dust.

“Things are changing,” he realized, curiosity piqued once more. “ _Why_ are they changing? … _Why_ , though.” He swooped out of the kitchen to better explore the apartment, seized with the sort of intellectual hunger only scientists could understand—immediately _starving_ for answers or explanations.

He had initially entered in such a hurry that he had overlooked the state of the main room. The carpeting was depressed with footprints and worry spots, the fibers running dreadfully close to bald in some areas. More over, the dust situation was more pronounced than it had been in the kitchen, muting the sheen of the brilliant mahogany wood. The drapes were open of their own accord, now, perhaps because the room had remembered he’d flung them wide.

Unable to help himself, he neared the glass again, looking out to the world that spread out across the horizon.

Had he realized before that very moment how deeply—how _dearly_ —he’d missed the Garden? There were people milling about, it seemed, but they were miniscule from his vantage point, insects skittering around the streets. Vexen considered banging on the glass, considered trying to get someone’s attention, but even _he_ wasn’t that far-gone. Lovely as it was, it was still nothing more than a memory. Nothing more than a hallucination.

He turned away from the landscape once more, taking a better look at his surroundings. The entire place seemed to be in a faint state of disarray, as though no one had taken the time to tidy up in quite some time. Even the air felt different somehow, dustier, perhaps… _heavier_. There were water rings staining the glass of the coffee table, and a large cobweb had appeared, stretched along one of the light fixtures.

It wasn’t until the piano music started up that he realized it had been silent to begin with. Focus renewed, he set off towards the sound, only to find yet again that the door was bolted shut. That much, it seemed, _hadn’t_ changed. He gave the knob one last forceful twist before turning on his heel, crossing through the hall towards the master bedroom.

“ _No._ ”

Vexen froze, head whipping towards the source of the voice. It wasn’t as violent a startle as the last time, he thought, but it was still more than enough to give him pause. “Hello?” he called, knowing already that it was a gainless venture. “Is anyone there?”

He strained his ears, expecting nothing more than continued silence—the world seemed to enjoy nothing more than playing that sort of game—but the pit of his stomach dropped when the voice continued. Slowly, subconsciously, his hand slid into the pocket of his cloak, tracing the outline of the scalpel and syringe waiting within. Vexen craned his head around the corner, half expecting to find someone waiting for him. But of course, there was no one. There was nothing but the open door of the master bedroom, belying nothing but perfect stillness.

Slowly he walked forward, hyper-vigilant for any sign of movement. The voice continued, and, unless he was entirely incorrect, had been joined by a second. As he neared the bedroom, the voices grew faintly louder, but they were still much too quiet to discern much more than consonant sounds and hissed breaths. “ _No_ ,” he heard again, _positive_ of that, at least.

When he stepped into the bedroom, he found it perfectly empty, perfectly still, but the whispers continued all the same. “Hello?” he tried once more, only to receive a sharp “ _Shh!_ ” from somewhere behind him.

He spun to meet the noise, but was still impossibly alone, save for his reflection in the vanity mirror. “Oh this is _preposterous_ …” he muttered, beginning to walk about the room, trying to pinpoint the source of the voices. But it was hopeless—the whispers seemed to surround him on all sides, giving him the distinctly unnerving impression that he was being circled.

“If you’re attempting to tell me something, you’ll have to speak up.” Shaking his head, he tried the doors to the side rooms once more, exiting once he found them locked. And still the voices surrounded him, becoming quieter and quieter until he finally stepped out of the apartment and shut the door behind him.

“Anyone else?” Vexen called out, the force of his own voice hanging heavily in the air. As though in response, the building began to shake, faintly at first, and then with more force, until he had to brace himself against the wall. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling, sending him into a fit of coughing. When finally it cleared, he scowled to no one in particular.

Lexaeus and Zexion needed to _hurry up_ , if they knew what was good for them. 

The door to 204 creaked open, and he steeled himself before entering the apartment once again. The dust was still present, bringing with it the stale smell of uncirculated air. He poked his head into the kitchen just long enough to affirm that nothing had changed, the water was still running endlessly from the tap, the table was still smeared with stains.

It became _immediately_ apparent that _something_ was amiss. The music, once so quietly serene, had become almost earsplittingly loud. He clapped his hands over his ears to try and dampen the noise, but somehow, it had no effect. Even with his palms flush against his ears, the music was loud enough to set his teeth on edge. Worse yet, each step that he took seemed to cause it to skip, squealing as though someone were ruthlessly scratching the needle along a record.

It was impossible to think, to move, to _breathe_. He was riveted on the spot like some small prey caught in a hunter’s sights, so loud was the sound. Hands clamped over his ears, eyes clenched shut, he managed to wrench himself from the spot where he stood, stumbling towards the door the music had been coming from before. As he neared it, it grew louder still, almost as though someone had forced his head inside of a grand piano. And he knew it was useless, a futile venture, because the door to that room had been locked each time he had checked it, and now…

He stumbled through the hall, using the side of his body to knock against the door, and it swung gently open. The very same instant, the music stopped, leaving a dull ringing echoing through his ears.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, still wincing internally from the magnitude of the sound. The silence washed over him, pressing at his eardrums insistently, making his head feel fuzzy with static.

It was a child’s bedroom. The bed was so terribly small, pressed against the wall before him. The walls were painted a dark, cosmic blue, the ceiling spotted with brightly glowing stars and planets, spelling out constellations and galaxies that never existed. Small toys littered the floor, spilling over from a monumental chest tucked away in the corner. A bookshelf stood filled to the brim with brightly colored stories he’d never seen, their titles spelled out in letters his mind couldn’t quite parse. A small nightlight glowed dimly to his right, as there were no windows letting the day’s light filter through.

There was no record player, however. No matter where he looked, no matter what piece of furniture or closet he peered into, there was _nothing_ to suggest the music had been coming from inside the room. But it _had_. He _knew_ it had.

Against himself, he shivered, furrowing his brow as he exited once more. As he stepped back out into the hall, he more than half-expected to hear the piano music start up again, but there was only funereal silence. He glanced over his shoulder to the child’s room once more, feeling something heavy but unnamed twist around his gut.

He peered around the wall to the other branch of the hallway, the door to the master bedroom still standing ajar. The whispers were still present, and if anything, had intensified as well. None of the words could be made out, but he was immediately filled with the uncanny sensation of being privy to something he wasn’t meant to hear. The voices were louder, the syllables more terse, as though two people were having an argument just out of his earshot. Vexen contemplated walking closer to try and discern what was being said, but before he could take so much as another step, the door slammed shut before his eyes.

“What am I supposed to be _gleaning_ from this?” he muttered to himself, pausing again to look out the window. His stomach sank at the sight.

He could remember when the Garden had begun to look like that—he could still smell the ozone collecting in the air as the thick clouds began rolling over their home. The storms hadn’t yet started, it seemed, but they were close. The sky was getting dark.

The carpeting under his feet was coming out in clumps as he walked across it to exit the apartment, giving him the distinct feeling that things would only be getting worse from that point forward.

Without him needing to act, the door to 204 slammed shut behind him, the action swift enough for him to feel a sudden rush of air behind him. The door to 205 already stood open, waiting, but the instant he stepped across the threshold, he was bowled over by the rancid, choking stench of rot.

To his credit, he made it three steps into the apartment before his stomach began to seize, his gorge working violently against him as he gagged. The arguing from the master bedroom had become a shouting match, the words still distortedly garbled in his ears. He could see the strange shadows being cast as the heavy fluorescent lights in the kitchen flickered on and off to some staccato rhythm, but it all proved to be too much.

Vexen pulled the door shut behind him, swallowing down gulps of clean air in the hallway. That had been _entirely_ unexpected. He had absently clamped a gloved hand over his mouth, and it was only after a minute or two that he found he was able to remove it.

And still, his ears rang as the latch to 206 clicked open.

“What…could you _possibly_ …still need me to see?” He glowered in the direction of the door, knowing full well that it could—and would—give him no answer. But still he was curious, and still the others hadn’t arrived, and so against his better judgment, he straightened himself up and pushed the door open.

Even with the drapes open, the apartment was pitch-dark. He couldn’t see so much as an inch in front of his face, save for the odd moments where a fork of lightning would slash through the sky outside the windows. Had it really become night so quickly? Had the storms outside rolled in so swiftly? His eyes strained against the darkness, but they seemed not to be able to accustom themselves.

His skin broke out into gooseflesh as he heard the first sound coming from the kitchen. It was a small, hollow noise, pathetic in its weakness. Only feet away from him, close enough that he could reach out and touch, someone was crying. No, that wasn’t quite right…they were _weeping_. There was loss in that voice, there was _exhaustion_. Lightning flashed outside, and for a fraction of a second, he could’ve sworn he saw a shadowy shape hunched over the kitchen table. But he was mistaken— _had_ to be—because the next time it flashed, the kitchen was perfectly empty.

He reached out with his hands to navigate, realizing only too late that he had no idea what he would do if his hands actually brushed against something. 

Or if something brushed against him.

The sound of the sobbing was drowned out, then, by a man’s booming voice, filling the apartment with resounding shouts. He was yelling at something, _screaming_ , almost, but his voice was just as blurred as the photos on the wall had been. Whenever Vexen came close to understanding what was being said, the meaning slipped from him like water through cupped hands.

There was light, though. There was _light_. As he neared it, he understood what he was seeing. It was the child’s nightlight, still glowing softly in the darkness. It gave the room a warm, orange cast, feeling somehow safe. He didn’t fail to recognize that the moment he stepped into the room, much like in 204, everything fell silent.

No more shouting, no more sobbing. Only preternatural silence—the sort that called libraries and empty classrooms and funeral homes to mind. The room was empty, no sign of dark figures or blurred faces, but he realized then that there were drawings lining the walls. Small pieces of paper he doubted he had overlooked, their lined surfaces colored over by what he thought might be crayon of some sort.

In one, there was a beautiful castle, starkly reminiscent of the one just outside the window, decorated with battlements and towers, bright fountains of rainbow waters shooting up on either side. Vexen reached out cautiously, fingers just barely brushing the paper.

At the first contact, a vein of black ink shot across the image, bleeding out into smaller branches. He pulled away with a sound of surprise, but the damage had been done. The blackness bled through the sheet, darkening the skies, saturating the castle, before finally dripping down the wall itself. 

He decided there wasn’t anything else he needed to do, in the dark apartment.

The light from the main hallway shone from under the door, and he used it as a beacon. There was a moment as he neared the door where the lightning flashed, and he became acutely aware of two dark, looming shadows to either side of him. He kept his arms tucked tightly to his sides and his eyes straight ahead, even as a disembodied breath hitched in his ear.

Vexen exited the room and closed the door behind him, unable to help the full-body shudder that wracked through him once he was back in the light. He was no stranger to think lurking in the darkness, but that…there was something about the encounter that didn’t sit right. He almost found himself missing the hospital—at least there, he’d had _some_ idea of what to expect.

207 was the last door on that side of the hallway, and he sighed, knowing what he had to do. There were only two others across the hall. He had set this in motion, _whatever_ it was, and he knew somehow, impossibly, that it was his job to end it.

The handle to 207 was hot in his hand, even through the fabric of his glove. It served to perplex him for a moment, but all made sense the instant the door opened before him.

A wall of heat bowled him over, causing his eyes to water and skin to sizzle. The smell of smoke, sulfur, and burning meat was overpowering; the flesh of his throat became too thick to breathe, so dry and raw from the scorching air. From over the roar of the flames, he could hear nothing but screams, shrill with agony. 

Another wave of hot air rolled over him, and he slammed the door shut. A long moment passed where he simply stood there, dripping with sweat, trying to swallow down the sick smell of death caught in the back of his nose. “Just two more,” Vexen said, hardly realizing he had spoken aloud. “Just two.” He looked over his shoulder to the other side of the hallway, where 208 and 209 stood innocuously enough.

He crossed to the other doors, staring at the knob to 208 tiredly. Any second now, Lexaeus and Zexion would arrive. They would arrive, they would find him, and he wouldn’t feel so obligated to continue this venture.

But they didn’t. And so he opened the door. 

It was tentatively that he stepped into the apartment, cringing against himself as the scorched remains of the carpeting crackled under his boots. The entire unit had fallen silent once more, save for the occasional snap of something burnt finally giving way. The wallpaper peeled from the walls, thick fingers of char climbing up from the crown molding until they reached the ceiling. The drapes had been eaten away and blackened by heat, the furniture little more than piles of ash.

Vexen waved a hand in front of him, trying to cut through the faint smoke that still filled the apartment. Already it smelled old, stale, the heat long since dissipating into a deathly chill. He was filled again with the pronounced sensation he was somewhere he _was not_ meant to be, but in for a penny, in for a pound, and there was still something this world was trying to show him.

The kitchen had seen better days—the appliances had melted to sludgy puddles on the countertops, glasses broken and littering the floor. At some point, the refrigerator had become detached from its plug, laying open on the floor, smoking and crackling with a heavy, oily smell.

He sighed heavily, filled with some strange discomfort as he walked through the ruins. There was rubble and detritus everywhere, making his trek through the apartment much more complicated than it needed to be.

The pictures that had decorated the wall of the hall were gone, likely shriveled to a crisp, reduced to less than dust. Somehow that was better, knowing that he wouldn’t have to puzzle over the warped faces they framed. Still, the wall held the impression of where they once had been, their shadows permanently etched in the wallpaper—bright cream-colored squares among the char.

When he stepped into the master bedroom, he wasn’t able to restrain the small, deflated groan that escaped him. It appeared it had been ransacked before it burned, the drawers overturned, shelves covered in broken shards, vanity mirror full of web-like cracks. His eyes were riveted by the bed, though, and the twin marks marring the mattress’s surface.

Both a deep, dark red, almost like blood. Both perfectly human-shaped, as though a couple had only just lain there, side-by-side. So precise were the shapes, that he thought he could almost trace the shape of the woman’s skirt, the coif of the man’s hair. He didn’t like it—didn’t like _any part of it_. Least of all, he disliked how very, very identical the silhouettes were to the dark, fleeting figures he’d seen before.

A faint sound pulled him from out of his reverie. It was small, muffled with distance, but caught his attention all the same. He crept back out of the master bedroom, and walked with an unnatural certainty towards the child’s room.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to see once he opened the door, but it wasn’t what he was greeted by.

The room was perfectly untouched. Not a single item was out of place. There was no hint of heat or fire, no sign that anything had ever been amiss. He froze as he heard the sound again, recognizing it for what it was—the scratch of a needle on a record. 

But still he could find no record player. No music followed the sound. The feeling of being somewhere _wrong_ became impossible to ignore, and he had turned on his heel before he even realized. There was no sensation of being followed, but still he found himself speeding up, breathing a heavy sigh of relief when he made it back into the perceived safety of the main hallway.

And then there was one.

He turned to 209, but stopped in his tracks. How it had escaped him before, he had no idea, but Vexen realized then that the final door in the hallway had been barred over. Thick wooden planks had been nailed across it, nails pressed so deeply into the wood they were difficult to see. He wouldn’t pretend to be unaffected by the realization…there had really been _no_ desire to enter the unit again, after what he’d seen.

But he could hear something, just on the other side. 

At first, he thought it was a trick of his mind, or perhaps just the memory of the bizarre sounds he’d only just escaped. It wasn’t, though. He knew it immediately and horribly, with the certainty of one in a dream; there was a _voice_ coming from the other side of the door.

There was no way to open it—he did not _want_ to open it—and so he did the next best thing. He crept closer to the door, turning his head to angle his ear towards the noise.

The breath grew cold in his lungs as he recognized what he was hearing. It was the same quiet piano sonata that had filled the apartment earlier, still so delicate as it wove its way through the air. But it wasn’t a recording.

It was being hummed by a child.

Furrowing his brow, Vexen leaned in closer, setting a hand against the door to steady himself as he tried to better his hearing. He knelt down ever so slightly, putting himself more at the voice’s level. As he bent over, the humming abruptly stopped, punctuated by a long, thrumming silence. And then… 

“ _Daddy?_ ” 

Something threw itself at the other side of the door with such force that Vexen was blown backwards. It rammed the door with such ferocity that he could literally _watch_ it shake in its frame, straining against the weight being thrown against it.

Vexen scrambled to his feet without any thought of decorum, tripping over himself as he fled into the stairwell directly behind him. He flung himself up to the stop of the staircase, and into something decidedly _solid_. Startling, he looked back up, releasing a strangely strangled noise of relief when the figures he saw were not those of monsters, but his teammates.

“I see we were missed,” Zexion commented breezily, the corners of his mouth hinting at something cruel. “Here I would’ve thought you’d be excited to _leave_ , not get a better look at the upper floors…or were we simply not moving _fast enough_ for you?” The last quip was heavily barbed, and Zexion shook his head as he pushed past him, heading down the stairway.

With him out of the way, Vexen could see the state of the third floor more clearly—the way the roof of the complex had collapsed inward, illuminating large patches of faded carpeting with brilliant winter sunlight. Snow had collected in some such places, giving the place a wet, mildewed stench.

“Were you being attacked?” Lexaeus asked, watching Vexen until he too reached the stairway, following down in Zexion’s wake.

“Not precisely,” Vexen said, voice still coming out in a rush, adrenaline thrumming behind his eyes. When he reached the landing, he found Zexion standing outside of 209, hand resting on the doorknob. “Don’t,” he said, perhaps with more force than was necessary. “If you open that door, we’ll all be choking on smoke and—”

Ever the contrarian, Zexion opened the door, flourishing grandly as it swung to reveal the apartment inside. “Dust,” he answered flatly. “There is nothing but dust. Just like the building we were in, just like the parts of this one we’ve seen. _Dust_.”

It took ever fiber of his self-restraint to keep Vexen from tearing his own hair out in frustration. He opened his mouth to object, to try and explain the way the room had been burning, the thick clouds of sulfurous smoke that had been rolling over the carpet like fog, but the matching expressions on Zexion and Lexaeus’s faces stopped him cold. “I…must have been… _mistaken_ ,” he said instead, jaw grit tightly enough to send a pang of pain through his molars.

“ _Clearly_ ,” Zexion drawled, breaking his pointed eye contact just long enough to slip into the apartment. “What sort of terrors sent you careening into us, then? I have to admit, while the interior design leaves something to be desired, I hardly find it offensive enough to be filled with such fear.”

Vexen narrowed his eyes, but held his tongue. Arguing would only take up more time—time they could spend _leaving_. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“ _Try_.” There was a childish, snide cut to Zexion’s voice as he traipsed throughout the apartment. “You don’t have the first idea what we had to endure, to get to you. The least _you_ can do is explain to us why you’re acting so irrationally.”

Lexaeus ducked down to fit through the doorway, following Zexion into the apartment. It was only then that Vexen followed, the back of his throat tasting of bitter vomit when he found the room entirely transformed. It was so much _smaller_ than before, the furniture overturned and veined with mold. The floors were hardwood, not carpeting, the drywall yellow with age and cratered with holes spilling out insulation like viscera. The only similarity was the color and thickness of the drapes, open wide to cast a bright path of illumination across the waxy floor.

“Nothing?” Turning over his shoulder, Zexion sighed. “Well, it’s much too quiet for there to be any of the atrocities we’ve encountered, that’s for sure.” He cast a veiled look to Lexaeus, who simply adjusted the weight of the steel pipe against his shoulder. “Count yourself lucky in that regard.”

 _Lucky_. He felt an angry tic begin to throb in his lower eyelid. “Why don’t you look outside and tell me what you see?” he asked, each syllable measured and metered as calmly as possible.

Brow knit, Lexaeus glanced to him, then to Zexion, before crossing the room to look out of the large windows. “What should I be seeing?” he asked, and Vexen only then realized the ragged tears slicing through the fabric of his sleeve, looking horribly like clawmarks. He’d had his own experience in the apartments…but what _had_ V and VI experienced that he hadn’t?

“Yes, what _should_ he be seeing?” Vexen didn’t need to look at Zexion to visualize the sneer tugging at his lips. “Fire? Brimstone? Floating, disembodied heads, perhaps?” With a derisive snort, he continued his exploration of the apartment, traipsing towards the door that had been the child’s bedroom.

He watched him disappear around the corner before he joined Lexaeus at the window, exhaling a heavy breath when he was met with nothing but a dingy view of the city street he’d been wandering earlier. “Should’ve known…” he mumbled, shaking his head dourly.

“What _did_ you see?” Lexaeus asked, though his eyes remained riveted on the maze of streets and back alleys, silently drawing a mental map of his own.

Vexen scoffed, “Does it _matter?_ ” He turned at the sound of a click, shaking his head again. “I’d be careful in there, were I you, boy.”

Lexaeus looked up at that, and Vexen couldn’t ignore the pit of resentment that accompanied the action. Loyal to a fault, that one; it may have been a relief to no longer be alone, but the feeling of being so far _outside_ their alliance…it was already grating on him. With a flip of his cloak, Lexaaeus was gone, footsteps shaking the floor beneath them as he joined Zexion in the other room.

“It’s only a bedroom,” Zexion said, voice muffled by distance. “Nothing terribly sinister about it.” When Vexen finally joined them, he found the Schemer lounging on the molding old mattress, hands underneath his head, staring up at the tiny stars and moons affixed to the ceiling. “Truth be told…” he began, and this time his voice was softer, more contemplative, “It actually reminds me a fair bit of _my_ old bedroom.”

Taking a quick inventory of the bookshelves, the toy chest, the discarded stuffed animals, Vexen scoffed. “This looks _nothing_ like your room in the Castle,” he said, lips pursed. “ _Now_ whose mind is acting up?”

Eyes narrowing only slightly, gaze still tracing the points of the stars splayed in constellations across the ceiling, Zexion grew uncharacteristically quiet. “I didn’t mean my room in the _Castle_ ,” he spoke finally, the sentiment causing Lexaeus to avert his gaze, Vexen’s shoulders to slump. Sometimes it was easy to forget where the boy had come from—it often felt Ienzo had been _born_ into the labs, surrounded by cold green lighting and the smell of formaldehyde. It was hard to imagine him as a _child_ , in the strictest definition of the word, carefree and bubbly and cheerful.

“Zexion,” Lexaeus said, voice low and eerily steady. “Do. Not. Move.”

Vexen had turned to Lexaeus at that, meaning to ask what had come over him, but it was then that he noticed the glimmer in his periphery. Looking back to Zexion, to the bed, he saw the eyes.

Just one at first—the same deep, fiery red that had peered up at him from the depths of the crevice—then two, three, four, five, six. Two looked past him to fix upon Lexaeus, two peered up as though they could see through the padding and fabric of the mattress to fix on Zexion, but the remaining two seemed to stare _through_ him. This close, he could make out the bizarre shape of their pupils, twin slits crossing perfectly in the middle. “What…” he began, but his voice crumbled to dust in his mouth, so heavy was the dread that came with the eyes boring through his soul. 

There was a papery, bony _click_ from the hardwood floor. Slowly, _horribly_ , something like a hand emerged from the darkness under the bed. But it was wrong, somehow, too many fingers splayed at unnatural angles, sprouting not from a palm but some terribly disjointed wrist. The claws, little more than the skeletal nails of a corpse, dug splintered grooves into the floor as it began to drag itself out into the room.

Seeing this, Zexion let out a low breath, pressing himself back up against the wall. “Oh, not again…”

“ _Again?!_ ” Vexen sputtered, eyes wide as he looked from Zexion to the creature slowly undulating from the shadows. “What do you mean _again?!_ ”

“ _Move_.” Lexaeus gave him no time to respond, simply reached out and shoved Vexen towards the opposite wall. At that instant, the monster under the bed pulled itself out into the room, a mass of translucent skin and tangled limbs. Lexaeus hefted the pipe from off his shoulder, preparing to fend the thing back—but not before it reared back to its full height.

It stood almost taller than Lexaeus, held up not by legs, but by six bony, desiccated arms, connected by an impossible number of knobbed elbow joints. Each ended in a spidery hand, the knuckles swollen protrusions giving way to a starburst of clawed fingers. The torso was somehow too grotesque for Vexen to fully process—but the image flickering in his mind was that of ancient tombs cracked open, half-preserved bodies sealed away, organs left to line the walls in jars of fluid. Looking at it for too long sent a piercing pain between his eyes, a strange buzzing in his ears, but still he was able to see those terrible eyes, rolling socketlessly to locate each of them.

Already on his feet, Zexion was out of the bedroom before Lexaeus could put the words together. “Get out of the room,” he finally managed, the cords of his neck standing out as he reeled back to strike at the thing. “ _GET OUT._ ” And that time, Vexen obeyed, finding that suddenly his legs were under control of his brain once more. He fled out into the main living area of the apartment, close on Zexion’s heels as they escaped into the hallway beyond.

“What _is_ that…that, th-that _thing?!_ ”

“Oh, are you asking for my _professional opinion?_ ” Zexion’s voice was too snide, too calm for his liking, but he was granted no time to say or do anything about it, as Lexaeus came barreling through the doorway, forcibly shoving them up into the stairwell.

Vexen sputtered as Zexion deftly took the stairs two at a time, disappearing up onto the third floor in a flash. “ _Go_ ,” Lexaeus grunted, whirling on his heel to face the creature as it caught up to him. It tore through the apartment on a sickening wave of fingers and limbs, moving like an overly large centipede as it jettisoned itself into the hallway with them. This time, when it reared back, Vexen could see the gelatinous black mass quivering in its open chest. And while he had spent the greater part of his life slicing into still-warm bodies, he felt his own innards melt at the realization he was staring at what may well have been the thing’s beating heart.

He stumbled over his feet, nearly tripping up the steps, but made it to the third floor in a whirl of instinctive adrenaline. “What does he think he’s going to _do?!_ ” he asked, breath heavy in his lungs as he all but fell next to Zexion, couched in the dark end of the hall. 

“What do _you_ think?” Still, his voice was calm… _expectant_ , almost. Zexion sat with his back against the wall, staring not at the stairwell, but at the large patch of sunlight and snow before them. And then, maddeningly, as though they weren’t being hunted down, he reached out as though to touch one of the sunbeams shining in through the collapsed roof, admiring the way his skin looked in the bright light. There were yells from the staircase, accompanied by the terrible bone-like tapping of the creature’s claws. He didn’t turn back to Vexen, but he could almost _swear_ the shape of Zexion’s mouth curved into something predatory for a moment. “He’s going to _protect_ us, of course.”

From out of the staircase, the thing emerged back-first, its fingers and claws scrabbling for hold on the wooden doorframe before a blow sent it reeling back with a gurgling choke. It took to the wall like a spider, its backmost limbs beginning the crawl so that it could still lash out against Lexaeus’s attacks. He appeared from the shadow of the stairway next, an oily black smear of ichor decorating his face like war paint. He struck at it again, the jagged end of the pipe puncturing the throbbing organ between its ribs.

The thing cried out again, in that same wet choking way, but was undeterred, wrapping two of its many-fingered hands around Lexaeus’s arm. They coiled around him like hungry snakes, slithering up to the ball of his shoulder.

“ _How?!_ ” Vexen asked, voice much shriller, much _louder_ than he had intended. “ _HOW is he going to do that?!_ ”

Zexion appeared unaffected. “Just watch,” he said simply, leaning his head against the wall. “You have so very little faith.”

Lexaeus wrenched the creature with all his might, using the thing’s deathly grip against it. He was still much heavier than it, much stronger, much more solid than its skeletal body, and it came crashing down from the wall at the first jerk.

“He pierced its heart—it did _nothing!_ _How is he going to_ —”

“Just. Watch.” Zexion grabbed the back of Vexen’s cloak, urging him to sit back next to him. “And for once, _stop talking_.”

Using the brunt of his weight, Lexaeus began to push the thing towards them, causing Vexen to spring back up onto his feet.

“ _What are you doing?!_ ” he shouted, pressing himself flat against the farthest wall, trying to keep space between himself and the monster. “ _Don’t bring it any closer!_ ” From below him, he heard Zexion scoff.

The creature yelled out again, sending a splatter of black liquid into the air. It seemed to be struggling against Lexaeus, now, almost as though it was trying to get back to the stairs…but he was having no part of it.

With one final, titanic blow from the brunt of the pipe, Lexaeus sent the thing staggering into the sunlit patch of hallway.

The moment it crossed the threshold from darkness to light, it began to convulse—its papery skin shivered, and almost started to _crawl_ , stretching and tightening until the dark veins underneath became pronounced black hashes. Its eyes rolled back to show nothing but red, the claws of its many hands tearing into itself in those areas that still bore flesh under skin. In an instant it grew silent, its body taking on a distinctly pallid hue, before it went still entirely.

Apprehensively, Vexen peeled himself from the wall, looking upon the scene with confusion. Next to him, Zexion took back to his feet. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you act quite so… _irrationally_ ,” he said thoughtfully, brow quirking as he looked up at Vexen.

 _“Irrationally?!_ ” 

Cutting their argument down to the quick, Lexaeus struck out one last time, slamming the pipe into the wall with enough force to send the entire floor shuddering. And there, before their eyes, the monster disintegrated into a plume of dust, falling harmlessly to the molding carpet beneath.

Vexen gaped.

“As we said,” Zexion sighed, crossing the patch of sunlight carefully, brushing himself of the debris that had landed on him, “You don’t seem to understand what we went through to get to you.” He rejoined Lexaeus near the stairs, “The things we’ve seen.”

He continued to stare at the formless pile of dust, eyes wide as the cogs of his mind spun to process all that he’d just experienced. When finally he found his voice again, it was only to ask, “How…many of those…?”

“Enough,” Lexaeus answered him, reaching up to wipe away the smears of black from his face. From next to him, Zexion offered Vexen an impatient look. “We should go, before we encounter any more.”

Vexen swallowed hard, the mechanisms of his throat working to tamp down the anxiety that had blossomed up on the back of his tongue. Gingerly, he stepped around the dust, bringing up the tail end of their procession back down the stairs. “There were more in the chasm,” he said finally, causing both of them to turn back and glare. “Between our the buildings.”

“Well thank you for disclosing _that_ information in a timely manner.” Zexion held his gaze for a moment longer before continuing down the stairs, Lexaeus following soon after him.

“I’m telling you _now_. When did you _expect_ me to say something? I only just learned that those things _exist!_ ” Neither of the others responded, and so he folded his arms across his chest in a show of frustration and insult, eyeing the door to the second floor landing warily as they passed by it.

They arrived at the first floor without incident, both Lexaeus and Zexion casting calculative looks towards the lip of the divide between the complexes. “I’ll go last,” Lexaeus said, voice almost low enough to be mistaken for another tremor in the distance. “Just in case." 

“Just in case,” Zexion parroted, crossing past Vexen to the main entrance with his noise in the air.

Stepping back into the light of the world seemed to strengthen his resolve once more—there was something about the visibility of the streets and their surroundings that took away the pressing feeling of needing to rush—and so it was with that comment that Vexen finally put his foot down. “If you have something to say to me, _Number VI_ , you might as well _say it_. You’re acting like a _child_ with all of these veiled barbs, and—”

“ _Veiled?_ ” It was strange, really, how someone as small as Zexion could give the distinct impression of looking down upon another. “Please don’t misunderstand me—I didn’t mean for _any_ of my comments to come across as _veiled_.” He approached him, expression eerily serene, voice clipped, “You have been _nothing_ but a burden, thus far. You have been overreacting, you have been allowing this place—this _world_ —to take that last _sliver_ of common sense and rationality from you. _We_ ,” he pointed to Lexaeus abruptly, “Have had to pay _undue_ attention to _you_. _Your_ welfare, _your_ safety, _your_ comfort—all because _you_ decided to tag along on a mission _you were not assigned_.” From under the curtain of his hair, his eyes were bright, “If it had been up to _me_ , you would’ve had to find your _own_ way out. And we would already be safely back in the Castle.”

Affronted, Vexen curled his upper lip into a grimace. “You would be wise to watch your tone when speaking to me, _Number VI_ —”

“Do not _presume_ I am some _child_ you can scold.” Zexion’s voice carried a gravity he’d never heard before, a weight that seemed to shake him on his very feet; in all actuality, the ground beneath them had taken to quaking again, the entire world trembling with aftershock.

When it ceased, Lexaeus stepped between them. “Tensions are high,” he stated flatly. “We’ll find the corridor to RTC. We can sort this out after.”

Zexion kept his gaze firmly on Vexen for a moment longer. “Good idea,” he drawled, “The _first_ I’ve heard, since we arrived.” With a flip of his hair, he turned from the apartment and the chasm in the ground, heading due west on the main street. “The historical society is in the northwest-most section of the town, I remember that much.”

“That’s the direction I _came from_ ,” Vexen interjected, clearly still peeved. “Don’t you think I would’ve _seen_ something like that?” 

“It’s further west than the hospital.” 

He narrowed his eyes, “How would you know that, if you haven’t _been_ to the hospital?”

From in front of them, Zexion’s shoulders heaved with a massive groan, and when he turned to face them again, there was something distressingly akin to _fury_ in his eyes. “I found. A map.”

“ _I_ found a map in the hospital. Didn’t do _me_ much good, did it?” Vexen snapped. “Are we just going to begin listing all of the things we’ve managed to pick up around the town? Because I also found a scalpel. I’m sure _that_ will help direct us back to the Castle.” He whirled to Lexaeus, “Anything _you_ managed to pick up along the way that might herald our safe return?”

Under the scrutiny of both of their gazes, Lexaeus simply shrugged. “I found a key. But it hasn’t opened anything, thus far.”

“Oh. Good. How very _auspicious_ for us all.”

“But I agree with Zexion.” He turned to look over his shoulder as the wind carried a piercing howl towards them. “We’ll try the historical society. _Any_ lead is better than _no_ lead.”

Vexen huffed as Zexion tipped his nose back in that haughty way again, continuing the walk down the street.

“Stop antagonizing him.” Lexaeus hung back with Vexen for a moment, resting the weight of the pipe on his shoulder once more. It was clear at once that it had been too long since last he held a weapon outside of his tomahawk—he seemed not to know what to do with it outside of battle.

“ _Antagonizing him?!_ Have you been paying attention at _all_ during this debacle?!” He turned on his heel with a flare of his cloak. “ _He’s_ the one acting strangely.”

It didn’t take long before Lexaeus and Zexion were astride one another, cutting their usual figure of unbalanced intimidation. Watching them walk their way through the town—Zexion with his head held high and leisurely pace, Lexaeus with his weapon drawn and eyes searching for danger—sent another uncomfortable pang of familiarity through him. Lexaeus’s uniform was different, now, and Zexion was not half so quiet, but…

 _Why_ did he keep having those thoughts? Why were those memories plaguing him so? This world was doing its damnedest to make him think about the Garden, but _why?_

“You said north, didn’t you?” he said, breaking the strange spell of his memories. Vexen gestured to the intersection he stood in the middle of, watching as the others kept walking. “This seems like a _perfect_ opportunity to go north, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No.” When Zexion looked back to him, it was with a glower. “We’ll go further west, then find our way north.”

“That makes _no_ logical sense. We have an opportunity to head north _now_ , it’s a _main road_ , it doesn’t get more clear-cut than that.”

His shoulders, unimposing as they were, squared themselves off. “I said _no_. That’s the route _I_ came from. It’s the route _I_ was attacked on. I am _not_ going back that way.” 

“There’s no guarantee we’ll find another main road that way. Do you want to risk the back roads and alleys? After all we’ve _seen?_ ” He gestured to Lexaeus, “You agree with me, don’t you? This is preposterous.”

Clearly unhappy with the prospect of getting between another one of their spats, Lexaeus exhaled a deep, tired breath. “Zexion,” the Schemer turned to him immediately, “Vexen has a point.”

“I’m _not_ going that way. I _refuse_.” 

“It isn’t as though you’re _alone_ anymore. What are the chances of you being attacked _now?_ ” Vexen snapped. “I’ve been attacked _countless_ times myself, today, but you don’t see _me_ shying away from any particular route, now do you?”

“I’m going west. You can follow me, or you can go on your own way,” he said stubbornly, each syllable clipped tersely.

Lexaeus sighed again, “I have a weapon. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Just like nothing happened to me earlier? With the dogs?” His stare was intense, something feverish in his eyes. “Just like nothing happened in the _labs?_ What a protector you are.” At that, they both looked to him, shock evident in their expressions. There was a drooping, defeated air about Lexaeus’s posture, and after all of the day’s déjà vu, Vexen felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle at the outburst. “You know what?” Zexion continued, “ _Fine_. You want to go north on this road? Let’s go north on this road.”

“This is _nothing_ to be arguing over!” But Zexion, heedless of the sentiment, had already begun marching up the street, arms tensely folded across his chest. Vexen was left to seethe, shooting Lexaeus a stormy glance before turning to tail Zexion. Before he could get very far, though, there was an insistent tug on the back of his cloak, and he found he could move no further. “What…?” he began, only to be cut off by a sudden gale of wind. It blew the hair back from his face and forced his eyes shut, blowing painful lungfuls of icy air through his nose and mouth.

When he was able to open his eyes again, it was in time to watch a large, hulking figure swoop down from the sky. “Stay low,” Lexaeus ordered brusquely, releasing his cloak and powering his way through the wind to intercept the figure. 

For once, Vexen was not about to argue. He kept himself crouched low—not that it seemed to matter much, the thing had already set its sights on someone else. He watched as its large, stone-like fingers plucked Zexion up off the ground as though he were no more than a child’s plaything, only to fling him carelessly away once it spied Lexaeus. He cringed as he heard the dull sound of Zexion’s impact with the wall of the apartment complex, but made no move to approach him, lest the thing in the skies take notice of him.

It landed with force enough to shake the cement beneath their feet; a stone soldier wielding an impressive pair of bat-like wings and an ancient spear. But even from this distance, Vexen saw that it moved far too fluidly, too _humanly_ , for stone. Its joints cracked with the heavy sound of grinding each time it moved, each blow that it struck out with, but there was something too _organic_ to its movements. He thought he could almost make out the dark lines of veins in the membranes of its wings.

More than anything, though, its eeriness was amplified by the intensity of the familiarity it brought with it. Somehow, he felt he had watched this fight a hundred times before—he knew just how Lexaeus would dodge, how the attack would be parried, the shouts and grunts of warfare echoing on the wind. He blinked hard to try and rid himself of the sensation, but still it remained. 

It was only fighting with one hand, he noticed—the other pressed tight to its chest, and wasn’t that bizarre? It wasn’t until Lexaeus managed to knock it back, planting a firm boot just above its center of gravity, that it finally faltered. It reached out to steady itself, to catch its fall, and that’s when Vexen saw it: the thick crack in its body. Without hesitation, Lexaeus jammed an end of the pipe into the opening. With one monstrous heave, its body had split unevenly, sending large, lifeless chunks of stone crashing to the earth.

Vexen straightened back up, inspecting the rubble from afar. There was something purple glimmering among the rocks, somehow _too_ saturated for the rest of their surroundings.

But then Zexion was moving again, recovering from the sudden attack, and their attention was turned to his felled form once again. “I told you…we shouldn’t take that route.” As he pushed himself up from the pavement, he groaned, arms shaking weakly until he was able to shift into a sitting position. “A little _warning_ next time something comes flying at me would be _greatly appreciated_ ,” he muttered, shooting a peeved glance over his shoulder. “So much for _protecting me_.”

Vexen scowled as he watched Lexaeus brush by, immediately pulled to the felled Schemer as steel to a magnet. His expression changed, though, as Zexion was drawn back up to his full height, shaking his head once curtly to flip the hair from out of his face. “Lexaeus,” he said stiffly, fingers absently finding the outline of the scalpel in his pocket. Both turned to look at him, and he found his words turn to ash on his tongue. Instead, he took a slow step backward, wrapping his hand around the makeshift weapon.

“What?” Lexaeus asked, immediately on the defensive once more, gaze scanning the skyline for another threat. “Did you see something?”

Yes. Yes he _had_ , but there was something inhibiting the words from reaching his mouth. Confusion? Uncertainty?

 _Fear_?

Lexaeus was looking at him now, but suddenly he found he couldn’t tear his own eyes away from Zexion. “Who are you?” his voice surprised him, incredibly strong and level, given the frenzy in his throat and gut. What he had thought to be fear curdled into something heavier as the Schemer knit his brow. A thought struck him, doing little to soothe his concerns. “Where is _Zexion?_ ”

“Well, there you have it,” Zexion said, punctuated with an adolescent roll of his eyes. Quirking a brow, he turned toward Lexaeus, though he kept his attention on Vexen, eyes twin chips of ice in the fog. “I _told_ you he was losing it. This world is playing tricks on your _mind_. If we could all keep from turning on one another—at least until we get back to the Castle, where that sort of behavior is _expected_ —we’ll be a lot better off, all right? _This_ is what I meant. _This_ is why you’re such a _danger_ to us. You’re weighing us down, you’re _slowing_ us down, and we have to cope with all of these…” He gestured vaguely, “ _Delusions_ of persecution.” With a cluck of his tongue, he shook his head, turning and resuming their earlier path, “The historical society isn’t too far, now, anyway. We’ll be back in no time.”

“You’re bleeding,” Vexen called out to him, tone tempered with the cool resignation of a patient exhausting the last of their hope. At that, Lexaeus turned back to him, his stony façade crumbling just long enough to reveal the surprise beneath. He, too, regarded Zexion with a newfound caution, leather straining against corded muscle as he tightened his grip on the iron pipe in hand.

Heaving a heavy, frustrated sigh, Zexion whirled around, throwing his arms out to his sides. “And is that going to be _an issue_?” he asked, puffing out a cloud of exasperation and breath, “I’m _injured_. You just saw that…that _thing_ fling me to the side like some sort of ragdoll—”

Vexen leveled his gaze, pulling the scalpel from out of his cloak. “We don’t bleed. Not anymore.”

With an incredulous scoff, Zexion looked at him, gesturing vaguely in some attempt to emphasize the ridiculousness of the accusation. When he met the Hero’s gaze, just as cold and disgusted, his grimace softened. He reached up with a gloved hand, touching the singular drop of red, leaving a smear between his nose and upper lip in its wake. For a long while, he simply stared down at it, nodding his head slowly. When finally he looked back to them, it was with the quiet, serene smile of a madman.

“Well,” he sighed heavily, shrugging in a manner that was somehow far too _loose_ , as though his muscles and bones were no longer so closely connected. “Now I’m _embarrassed_. No excuse for sloppiness, right?” His grin widened and widened still, tearing through the corners of his lips until it seemed to wrap around his head entirely. The bright white gleam of the sun spared them no detail, the light glinting off of an impossible number of tiny, blindingly white teeth, and in that moment they both wondered how they _ever_ could’ve mistaken such a monster for Zexion. “ _Oops_.”


	7. False Idols

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Blood and gore, body horror, animal death, needles.

“Don’t look so surprised,” the thing wearing Zexion’s face said, its voice now eerily inconstant, ringing like an echo. “You’ve been suspicious from the _start_.” Its smile was still too wide, promising too many teeth. “I really have to hand it to you, though…I was _not_ expecting that. I’ve seen much less fool much better than you, so imagine _my_ disappointment, here.”

Vexen tried not to look too long upon it, suddenly painfully aware of each terrible crack in its mask. It was almost as though they had been there all along, but only now brought to their conscious awareness with the revelation; the rubbery stretch of its skin, the dark veins splintering off from the back of its eyes, the way the underlying shape of its skull seemed to change with each facial expression. The scalpel was still clutched tightly in his hand, but he knew it wouldn’t do much good.

It looked from him to Lexaeus and back again, clucking its tongue, “No one has anything to say? _Really?_ I’ve endured nonstop backchat from you since the time of your arrival, and it’s _now_ that your infinite well of commentary runs dry?” It gestured vaguely with its hands before shrugging halfheartedly. “If I had known _this_ was all it would take to get you to _shut up_ …well,” it chuckled, sending a scream of icy wind tearing down the street, “Maybe we should’ve done this sooner.” 

“Who are you?” Vexen repeated, finding he had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. And then, after a beat, “ _What_ are you?”

That seemed to amuse the double to no end, causing a short, harsh bark of laughter. “Oh, the melodrama…” it smiled even wider (if such a thing was possible), spreading its arms wide as though basking in the moment. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re actually expecting an answer. Hmm. Well I have to admit, I’m at a bit of a loss. Is this the part where I say something equally sensational and cryptic? _I have many names…none that can be spoken by the tongue of man_ , perhaps?” It shook its head, still beaming charitably. “You’ve been calling me Zexion all this time, why not just make it easy on yourselves and continue?”

“You’re not Zexion.”

“Please, I’m close _enough_ , aren’t I?” Setting its arms akimbo, it cocked its head to the side. “I can change my face…I can change my voice…and _clearly_ I can make both of you feel as though you’re only an inch tall, so really…” its eyebrows drew up, giving it the pained expression of a parent lecturing a child, “What difference _is_ there?”

From somewhere in the distance, the strange, inhuman baying began anew, carried on the wind like a funereal shriek. Neither Vexen nor Lexaeus made any sign of movement, still trying to make sense of what was happening, to get a read on the threat the imposter posed.

It looked from one to the other before chuckling softly, “Sorry, how rude. You asked me a second question, didn’t you? And while I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I’m more _thing_ than _being_ ,” it drawled slowly, voice dripping like cold molasses in the frigid air, “I’m simply a resident of this world. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Doubt hung thickly between them. Vexen considered responding for a long moment, but refrained, overcome with the unpleasantly unshakeable idea that the thing—whatever it might’ve been—was somehow privy to their thoughts.

And then, as thought in acknowledgement, “I think we’ve come too far together to get hung up on such minutia. _I’m_ not important, here. What’s _important_ is that you find your way _out_ of my world and _back_ to yours.” It folded its arms across its chest, skin waxy in the bright light of day. “That’s _all_ I’ve been trying to do.”

Vexen _did_ have to react, then, eyes wide with fiery indignation. “You’ve been _trying_ to _kill us!_ ” he seethed, “At _every turn_ , you’ve—”

“ _I’ve?_ ” it interrupted, pressing a hand to its chest in a pantomime of affront. It, too, widened its eyes, but the bright smear of blood running from its nose destroyed any vestige of innocence it might’ve been playing at. “ _I_ , personally, have done _nothing_ of the sort. Have I ever _once_ raised my hand against you? Have I brandished anything at you? _You’re_ the one gripping onto that scalpel.” Its eyes flicked down to Vexen’s pocket, and then back to his face, “ _I_ have done _nothing_ but try and lead you out of here.”

Lexaeus exchanged a brief glance with Vexen, expression revealing only a fraction of his thoughts. It was right, his eyes said; whenever a threat had befallen them, whenever something had frightened or wounded them, it had been one of the town’s monstrous aberrations. Not _it_.

“I’m your _friend_ —your _ally_. I’m just trying to help you get home,” it continued patiently, that same slow smile on its lips. “Have my methods been questionable? Perhaps. Have my intentions been good? Most certainly. _You_ are the ones who’ve been combatting _me_. Had you simply listened to me, you both would’ve been back to your world shortly after waking here in mine.”

“You would’ve split us up.” The impertinence in Vexen’s voice meant one thing—he had _also_ come to realize the thing was right. In retrospect, it was glaringly obvious; it had been stressing the importance of finding the historical society since their first meeting. What it _wasn’t_ explaining was its vehemence.

Expelling a childish sigh, the double spread its hands out in front of itself, gesturing airily towards the both of them. “I would’ve, yes. I would’ve _much_ preferred to see each of you back individually, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with _this_.” Quirking a thin eyebrow, “I think you have to admit, hubris aside, the group dynamic you all have going on is…” it scrunched its face slightly, “ _Messy_.” 

Their silence was agreement enough.

Vexen narrowed his eyes against both the wind and his suspicion, “And we’re supposed to just… _trust you_?”

“Do you have any alternative?” it asked, its smile and gaze eerily even, uncomfortably sane. “Have you run into anyone else who’s taken it upon themselves to help you? No? Then I think it would behoove you to _listen_ when I _speak_.”

“We’re supposed to believe that you’ll just safely see us out?”

“You are,” it replied, the corners of its mouth curling into something entirely _wrong_ for Zexion’s face.

“Why would we do that?” His words were clipped, tone skeptical. “You’ve done _nothing_ to earn our confidence.”

“Why? Why _not_?” A chuckle, then a breath, and it leaned forward in a manner that was almost confidential. “I’ll level with you. Your continued presence here is a _burden_. Neither of you were called to this world. You weren’t _summoned_. A _lot_ of energy has been expended in dealing with you—energy that, quite frankly, could be better spent on other things.”

It was Lexaeus who stepped in then, his mistrust more firmly rooted, but much more subtle than Vexen’s. “What do you mean, we weren’t ‘ _called_ ’?”

Without missing a beat, the copy waved its hand. “Exactly what it sounds like. You aren’t meant to be here. That’s why getting you back to _your_ world is so imperative.”

“You honestly want us to believe that you’re going to just…what, shepherd us safely home with no strings attached?” Vexen’s voice was growing strained from having to speak over the wind, but it hardly deterred him. “After you’ve spent so much _time_ creating all of these illusions to torment us?! You say you have better things to spend your energy on, and yet you’ve cut _no_ corners to play these _horrible_ games with our minds?!”

There was a moment of silence from the other, an instant where its expression furrowed with confusion—but when realization struck, its grin widened viscerally. “Oh _please_ ,” the doppelganger laughed, rolling its eyes up to the endless sky. “How vain must you be, to think _any_ of this has to do with _you_?” With another chuckle, impossibly low and improbably horrific, it swiveled its gaze to Lexaeus. “Or you,” it added, before wrinkling its face in contemplation. “Well. Maybe it has _something_ to do with _you_ ,” it corrected with a lascivious wink, making a grand show of flicking out a long, pointed tongue to wipe the blood from its upper lip.

The line of Lexaaeus’s mouth tightened at the display, but he remained unmoved. Vexen, on the other hand, grimaced noticeably.

“This has all been a happy coincidence. I’ll admit, I had _no_ idea that the two of you would find as many parallels to yourselves as you have…but I _promise_ you. _Nothing_ here has been made for _you_. We have much, _much_ grander aspirations than a discredited recluse and a neutered guard dog.”

“ _We?_ ” Lexaeus began, before the wind picked up brutally; it screamed so loudly past them that they grew all but deaf to anything outside of it, weapons falling to the ground as both clasped their hands to their ears in an attempt to mute the storm’s howl. With it, the snow thickened, whiting out everything beyond their immediate circle—it was as though the world outside of them had ceased to exist.

And then, horribly, the thing’s voice rang out over the gale, quiet and calm as ever, “You ask a lot of questions for beings so utterly at our mercy. Accept my help or decline it, but you _will_ stop wasting my precious time.”

“ _Lexaeus?_ ” Vexen gasped, vision severely impeded as the wind whipped his hair into his face.

“We aren’t leaving without Zexion,” he responded flatly, voice thunderous.

 _Zexion_.

Vexen felt his stomach sink even as his shoulders tightened against the blustering cold. Damn it all, he had nearly forgotten the _real_ Zexion.

Narrowing its eyes, the copy’s face contorted, turning into something distressingly akin to a child’s pout. “Have it your way, then.” It spread wide its hands and the world around them began to tremble. Before either had time enough to process what was happening, they were brought to their knees by the quaking of the ground. Around them, snowdrifts began to swirl, the heavy glass windows of storefronts and homes shattering, underground pipes groaning before flooding the streets with freezing water and sewage.

Between them and the copy, a crack appeared in the pavement, opening slowly wider and wider until it resembled the hungry maw of some terrible creature. With each passing moment it grew deeper, spread further, climbing unnaturally higher towards the sky.

“It’s a fun little trick, isn’t it?” the thing asked, looking down upon them from the towering lip of earth it had created. Its face split wide in another gruesome grin as the ground shifted wildly. “I do hope you appreciate it—it’s a little something I picked up from _you_ , after all.”

Lexaeus’s lip curled upwards into a scowl, watching as the double gained more and more ground, perfectly out of their reach. Vexen’s gaze, however, was wrought on the chasm the quaking had created—more specifically, the sinuous, skeletal claws appearing along the very edge. “I think we need to go now,” he said, something knotting horribly in his chest as his voice was swallowed by the wind. He grabbed hold of Lexaeus’s arm, pointing frantically to the pale things heaving themselves up from within the crevice. “ _Go, go, go!”_

Whether his voice had been heard or not, the message had gotten across; the two turned heel and ran.

It was immediately a struggle—not unlike trying to run in a nightmare. The ground beneath their feet was heavy with snow, slick with ice, and shaking all the while. Around them, the town seemed not to move, as though they were simply running in place, futilely attempting their escape; but even then, from just behind them came a choking gasp of a scream.

Things _burst_ back into motion, then, and whether it was adrenaline or just another illusion, the distance between them and the rift the double had created seemed to stretch and stretch until it disappeared on the horizon within moments.

Everything fell silent around them once more, nothing but their heavy breaths echoing through the empty streets. It was then—and only then, surrounded by the dampened silence of snow and desertion—that the pieces began to fall into place.

“Wait… _wait_.” Lexaeus slowed to a stop as they rounded the corner, shoulders rising and falling with heaving breaths. “They’re weak in the light.” There was a bitterness to his voice, the realization bringing with it a wave of irrepressible anger at having been fooled _again_. “They wouldn’t be following us. They _can’t_.”

Already several yards ahead of him, Vexen stopped, turning to regard him for an instant before doubling over to try and catch his breath. He attempted to respond, but whatever he had planned on saying escaped him as nothing more than a rasped breath. Agility was not his strong suit on the best of days, and even _then_ , the ice was usually on his side. Now, he thought his lungs might shatter in his chest.

“ _Damn_ it all,” Lexaeus said instead, pounding a frustrated fist against the building he leaned on. “It has us shaken.”

Hands still on his knees, Vexen momentarily raised his head, shooting him a look that somehow managed to be incredulous and furious all at once. His expression changed as he realized precisely where they were, lip curling as he straightened back up.

The hospital.

“We should continue moving,” he said, voice still weak from exertion. “In case.”

“They’re not following.” Lexaeus didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder for affirmation. “We..” he stopped, eyes narrowing as the word soured in his mouth, “ _I_ encountered enough of them in the apartments. They can’t be in the light. It was another illusion. They’re _all_ just _illusions_ …”

“I’m not staying here.” His response was flat, and though his muscles still ached from all of the chaos of the mission, Vexen continued walking due north, doing his best to keep from so much as glancing in the direction of the hospital as he passed it.

Ever the observer, Lexaeus took note of his behavior, glancing towards the building. “Is there any chance—”

His stride did not so much as falter. “What? That _Zexion_ is in there? Well _I_ had certainly thought so, but _clearly_ I was wrong, wasn’t I?” The snap in his voice was almost as cold as the wind tearing down the street. “There’s nothing in there for us.” 

Lexaeus’s gaze lingered on the foggy line of windows for a moment, as though still tempted to give the place a once-over, but it wasn’t long before he was following after Vexen once more. It was difficult to tell, his expression typically dour, but there seemed to be a particular, seething anger pulsing just under the surface of his rocky exterior.

There would be no discussion of what had just unfolded.

The storm raged on around them, tearing at their cloaks like hungry teeth, whiting out their surroundings until it seemed the world itself existed only in their closest periphery. Simply walking against the wind had become a struggle, the temperature dropping even further still until it felt as though their skin might freeze and crack along the seams.

The first hint something was amiss was a low, serpentine hiss from behind them.

Against the white of the storm, the creatures stood out more than ever, fur matted dark with clotted blood and viscera. It was the strangest thing to watch as they approached, the air rippling around them with heat, the snow evaporating into the air as their paws made contact. Their presence was immediate, as though they had simply walked out of the air, hackles raised and jagged teeth bared.

Vexen stopped almost before his mind could process the things in front of them, something ringing warning bells in the low, lizard parts of his brain. There was something about their _eyes_ , he thought, as preposterous as it sounded—they flashed toxically in the bright light of the world, green and yellow in turn. Knowing it would do next to nothing, he reached for his scalpel.

Only to realize it wasn’t there.

Lexaeus, it seemed, had been in possession of enough rational thought to retrieve his weapon from the ground before they had fled from the double’s trap. Vexen had not.

The pipe whistled as it cut through the air, but the beast on the left seemed to anticipate the blow. It lowered itself onto its haunches to avoid being hit, its partner growling deep and low in its chest before lunging.

Its approach sent a wave of heat over them, intense enough to cause perspiration. It was suddenly all teeth and claws, snarling furiously as it ran at them, thick ropes of foamy spittle dripping from its jaws.

His next blow did not miss. The thing’s chest caved in horribly, as though it were made of nothing more than papier-mâché. It tried to yelp, Vexen thought, but the sound caught in its throat, dead before it even hit the ground. Its partner raised its carrion muzzle to the sky, howling a mournful bay that swirled and carried on the wind until it seemed a hundred of the things were crying out. The next moment, it had run forward, narrowly missing a second crippling swing. It landed on its feet behind them, snapping its jaws once with a harsh bark before scampering off, claws clicking against the pavement as it retreated.

“Remind me to thank VII for this assignment…” Vexen muttered lowly, watching as snow began to pile around the cooling body of the dead creature.

“Why?” Lexaeus shouldered the pipe again before proceeding forward. “You heard… _it_.” And there was that sour note, again. “This was never our assignment. We weren’t _called_. We just _followed_." 

He heaved a breath, looking over his shoulder to be positive the thing’s mate had truly disappeared. “That we did.” Vexen shook his head, folding his arms tightly across his chest to try and counter the wind as they continued down the street.

Lexaeus was quiet for a long while, but he didn’t need to speak for Vexen to see the cogs in his mind restlessly whirling. None of this was sitting well with the Hero. “ _It’s_ controlling all of this,” he said, voice and eyes low with disgust. “It’s using our memories against us—warping them, changing them to try and frighten us out. I should’ve known. I should’ve _known_.”

“As should I have.” There was a wisp of reproach in his voice too, unexpected until he heard it aloud. “The way things just… _changed_ when he…” his brow furrowed. “ _It_ was there.” In that instant, a million memories flashed back to him—how the hospital’s halls had melted into harmless passages, the way the apartment had shifted in appearance…it really _had_ been in front of his nose all along, mocking him.

Lexaeus was silent for another moment, eyes still fixed on the ground as he walked. “It was only letting us see what it wanted us to.”

He narrowed his eyes, “Trying to convince us we were mad.”

“ _Helpless_ ,” Lexaeus added, the word carrying with it, a heaviness that made Vexen shudder. “It wants to break us.” His mouth tightened into a grimace, “Imagine what Zexion must be going through.” 

And there it was again. Vexen wanted to put a foot down right then, wanted to shake him, wanted to _scream_. Monster or not, abomination or not, the copy had certainly played its part well—well enough that Lexaeus had bought into the ploy without so much as a second glance. Why was it, then, that he couldn’t see that Zexion was the one likely to be the best off, among the three of them? Zexion could hold his own against illusions and lies and mirages. Zexion had gotten them _into_ this nightmare.

 _They_ were the ones who needed help. 

But before he could articulate any shred of the furious cacophony of his thoughts, the street opened up in front of them, two paths splitting off to the east and west in a T-junction. And in the middle, plain as day and placed somehow _too_ obviously to be trusted, a sign.

**SILENT HILL HISTORICAL SOCIETY**

**< \-   
**

They regarded it with varying degrees of agitation; it was apparent at once, given the shifting of his gaze, that there was nothing Vexen wanted more than to obey the faded little arrow beneath the typeface and seize any opportunity to get out of the damned, dizzying world. Even having to sit down and report a mission failure to VII seemed a pleasant alternative, by then— _dealing with XI and XII_ seemed a pleasant alternative. But Lexaeus’s gaze had immediately turned from the sign, already mapping out the grid of streets they’d yet to explore.

Vexen could want and want and _want_ , but Lexaeus’s mind was already made up.

“I suppose there’s little chance of us leaving and later returning with reinforcements?” he asked humorlessly, pursing his lips when the other shot him a withering glare. “It would just…” he looked back down the path the arrow indicated, staring longingly at the empty street, “It would just be so _easy._ ” 

“Not without Zexion,” came Lexaeus’s flat reply, the wind carrying his voice as he began walking in the other direction.

“ _Why_ are you so _set_ on that?” It had been on his mind since the hotel, but it was only then that Vexen could hold it back no longer. “ _Why?_ Why do we need to find him? Why do _we_ need to carry him back with us? He’s perfectly capable of getting himself out of this mess—he’s gotten out of worse! This was _his_ mission, not _ours_. Let _him_ find his way back.”

Lexaeus didn’t so much as break stride. He didn’t even look over his shoulder. Instead, he simply raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “It’s what he would do, were I in the situation.”

“Not for _me_.” There was the strangest tightening in his throat that came with the revelation, but Vexen forced it down, folding his arms stiffly across his chest. “He wouldn’t put himself through _any_ of this for _me_.”

It was impossible to tell if Lexaeus had heard him or not.

Giving the historical society’s sign one last fond, lingering look, Vexen followed after Lexaeus, lowering his head against the gusts. It became apparent at once that, regardless of whether his previous sentiment had been heard, Lexaeus was done discussing Zexion. They walked in silence, eyes slit against the blinding glare of the snow until they came to a crossroads.

Wordlessly, Lexaeus pointed to the north where a smaller path branched off. Without any sort of deliberation, he changed his course, soldiering through the snow to examine the trail. As they crept nearer, dark swathes of color appeared through the haze of the storm. Browns, greys, fading greens…

There was a fair amount of cover overhead—not nearly enough to shield them from the wind, but enough that much of the ground had only the faintest dusting of snow upon it. A decrepit cement sign, leaning against one side of the path like a forgotten grave marker proclaimed they had entered Rosewater Park.

They exchanged glances before proceeding, watching as the world around them grew slowly greener and greener. A few yards in, and the plants above them became thicker and thicker. It was almost as though they were underground, so quickly did they fall into darkness. 

“Everything’s _frozen_ , how can these still be alive?” Vexen muttered to himself, having taken to using the line of tree trunks on either side of the walkway as a guide, gloved hand occasionally catching on a patch of bark.

“Yes. The _trees_ are the most unbelievable phenomenon we’ve experienced here.” There was no humor in Lexaeus’s voice.  
  
Vexen suspected he _had_ heard what he’d said about Zexion, after all.

“There’s light ahead,” he said, grip tightening on the pipe held at his side. “Be on guard.”

“Isn’t that _your_ job?”

They continued down the path, the spot of light ahead growing larger all the while. When they drew near enough to see what was on the other side of the strange forest tunnel, a brutal shudder wracked through them both.

“Remember back in the hotel,” Vexen began, voice bizarrely calm, considering the way his gut was knotting and unknotting itself. “You asked me what I thought I had seen out of the windows?”

“I do.”

He nodded slowly, brow furrowing as he pushed an errant branch out of his way and stepped out into the light. “Well. I suppose this is as good an answer as you’re going to get.”

Rationally, they knew it was just another illusion; but it was the same sort of rationality with which they knew the precise color the cobblestones under the snow would be. Somehow, impossibly, they had found themselves where they’d been thousands, if not _millions_ of times before—the fountain plaza of Radiant Garden.

Neither spoke. They simply looked about, trying to find the seams in the mirage, trying to break themselves out from the nauseous thrum of déjà vu. But it was all to no avail. Everything was precisely as it had been, once upon a time.

Vexen shook his head as he approached one of the fountains, reaching out as though a simple touch would be enough to dissolve the illusion. Or, alternately, confirm the impossibility of its existence.

Before he could take another step, Lexaeus’s arm caught him in the chest, halting their progress immediately. Vexen opened his mouth to argue, but Lexaeus held up a silencing finger, eyes narrowed as he took inventory of their surroundings. “Hear that?”

He stopped, dropping his arms at his sides in frustration. “What? I don’t hear anything.”

The Hero nodded incrementally. “The wind stopped.” And now that they were still, something else became readily apparent. Eyes narrowing even further, Lexaeus reached out, delicately tapping a flake of snow impossibly suspended in the air only inches from his face. “ _Everything_ stopped,” he amended.

“How can that be?” But even as he voiced his disbelief, he became aware of the eerie stillness surrounding them. So close to the fountain, he could see that the water streams weren’t circulating at all, but hanging feet into the air as though frozen. The nape of his neck prickled with the unpleasant freezing burn of _wrongness_.

“I have to admit…at this point, I’m not sure whether I’m impressed by your gall, or agog at your stupidity.”

There was no surprise when the familiar figure disentangled itself from the shadow of a nearby gazebo, but their disappointment was palpable. Its Zexion mask was still in place—perhaps a bit looser than before, a bit more ephemeral in spots—and seeing his profile against the frozen fountains was enough to fill their heads with the uncomfortable buzz of repressed memories. It brushed snow and plant matter from its shoulders as though it had all but literally materialized through the garden wall, and it was only then, with something to contrast against the snow, that they noticed the white lab coat it wore.

“Do you like it?” it asked, looking down at itself before meeting their eyes again. “I think it’s a good look, personally. A little too easy to dirty up, but…” it trailed off, shrugging its shoulders as if to say it was what it was. When there was no response, it quirked its lips up into a cordial smile. “Did you miss the sign? It was just over that way…” Helpfully, it gestured over its shoulder with its thumb, “Straight path to the historical society. Straight path back home. Looks like you got pretty turned around—”

“Stop toying with us.” Lexaeus’s voice was a brutal clap of thunder against the town’s sudden preternatural silence. “We don’t care _what_ you are. We’re done with your games.”

“This again?” The thing clucked its tongue, its posture immediately dropping into something more akin to a slouch. “I suppose I’ll humor you. _What_ is it that I’m supposed to be now, precisely?”

Another moment of silence, as though realizing how preposterous it would sound when spoken. “A god.”

It huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “A _god?_ No. No, I can’t say I am. Really though, how _banal_.” Smile widening to reveal an impossible number of teeth, it shook its head. “What a ridiculously _human_ thing to assume. And here _I_ was, thinking you were men of _science_ and _logic_.”

Vexen squinted his eyes against the accusation, but something about the thing’s white coat had his tongue tied in knots. He felt very much as though he were about to tumble down some unseen stairwell, foot slipping as it missed the crucial step, launching him down into some dark and horrible realization. The world felt somehow off-kilter.

“Then how are you doing this?” Lexaeus didn’t gesture, but didn’t need to—the double raised a curious eyebrow before snickering lowly.

“You…you think _I’m_ doing _this?_ ” its lips hooked up into something decidedly more mocking as it spread its hands open to the snow hanging in the air, the unmoving water streams. “I’m _flattered_ , honestly, but I told you before. I’m just a resident of this world. I may have a few interesting skills I can call upon but…that doesn’t make me a _god_ , does it?” It looked to Lexaeus to Vexen, and back again, “Does that make _you two_ gods?” It screwed its face up into a parent’s judgmental leer. “Not quite. We have _so_ much in common, the three of us. Well…” it paused, looking down at itself again before laughing, “ _Four_ , I suppose.”

At that, Vexen _did_ speak up. “We’re nothing like you.”

Its eyebrow crept ever higher. “Oh no?”

“ _No_. We don’t revel in _chaos_. Our prime directive is not _bloodshed_.” He did his best to avoid the copy’s direct line of sight, the shivers of discomfort running down his spine growing ever stronger.

It cocked its head to the side, as though sensing his apprehension. “Oh, believe you me, I am the _first_ to claim responsibility for what goes on here. Why pretend anything to the contrary? Yes, ours is a world of death, of torment, of _suffering_ …but we’re _painstakingly_ selective about who we choose to roast at the spit. We hurt those who have been judged _deserving_ of it.” For once, its cloying smile was absent. “ _You_ , however…you were not _half_ so discerning, were you?” Something in its expression flickered unnaturally, like old film stretching and fraying. “No, _no_. You and yours just cut into anything with a pulse, didn’t you?”

Its allusions were becoming less and less veiled with time, and now, standing in what very well might have been the fountains in some terrible past life, there was no use pretending they didn’t understand. Vexen squared his shoulders, Lexaeus cast his eyes downward.

“How many lives did _you_ take, I wonder?” It slunk closer to them, movements strangely _too_ fluid, not entirely unlike the uncoiling of a viper. “How many _families_ did you _destroy?_ ” The smile was still gone, but there was something else, something _hungry_ in the shape of its lips. “Who among us is the _real_ monster?”

“Is that what you are, then?” Lexaeus asked, the thing’s head snapping impossibly quickly to stare his way. “A _judge?_ ”

Silence. And then, slowly, “No…no.” And if they had expected another grating laugh, they were sorely mistaken; while there was still amusement dancing behind the thing’s eyes, its tone had gone strangely flat. Reflective. “If I were here to judge you…” it shook its head, gaze falling to some point on the grey horizon. “There’d be nothing left of you but bone and sinew.” When it looked back to them, there was no mockery in its expression—only cool contemplation. “A judge would eat you alive, piece by piece. Their methods are a little more…well. I guess ‘ _archaic_ ’ is the term that comes to mind.”

Without the wind, the world had grown eerily silent around them, broken only by the copy’s voice. It had become so quiet, in fact, that Vexen could actually _hear_ the faint sound of Lexaeus’s sleeve stretching across his muscle as he tightened his grip on the pipe. The thought of something bigger, stronger, _hungrier_ , just waiting somewhere out there…it wasn’t sitting well with either of them. Vexen had a lingering suspicion, though, that Lexaeus’s worries weren’t for himself, but for _Zexion_.

Just another thing that set the two of them apart.

The being wearing Zexion’s face continued on, sparing them little more than a cursory glance. If nothing else, it had done its due diligence, learning how to emulate the Schemer in that regard. “I’m a little different.”

“An attendant?” Lexaeus had found his tongue once more, though each word weighed heavily on it; and while his voice was stonily resolute, there was still the faintest hint of uncertainty in the crease of his eyebrows.

When it turned to look at him, its smile was a little _too_ similar to Zexion’s for comfort. “You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you? An etching on a church wall, and you take it for gospel.” It cocked its head to the side just so, barely displacing the fringe of Zexion’s hair to reveal the rotting, decayed remains of the right side of its face. “Your kind never fails to amaze me. So quick to attribute every- and anything you don’t understand to some…divine plan. All this talk of…” it threw its arms wide, “ _Gods_. I’m no more mystical than you. Older, maybe…it comes with the territory, but omnipresent? Omni _potent?_ Hardly.” Something underneath the skin of its face squirmed sickeningly. “I’m…” for a moment it struggled, pursing its lips in thought. “Well, I guess you could say that I’m a _reminder_.”

“Of _what_ , precisely?”

It aimed its gaze back to Vexen, much to his chagrin, and it was only then, in that proximity, that he realized something was very _wrong_ with the shape of its pupils. He couldn’t help the shudder that tore through him; it was as though every moment spent looking at the thing, it withered and rotted just a bit more.

“Why you’re here.” It paused for an instant before smiling slightly. “Well…not _you_ , exactly. I’m not really here to remind _you_ of anything. _You_ don’t belong here. _You_ weren’t called.” Another pause, and its eyes swiveled to Lexaeus, head eerily still. “ _Neither_ of you.” Before either could respond, it clarified, “Right now, my job is to get _you_ to _leave_.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Something in Lexaeus’s voice caused the copy to laugh again, its smile widening until its mouth was viscerally reminiscent of a gash. “We’ll see about that.”

“No.” His tone was forceful enough for Vexen to mistake its rumble for another aftershock. “We won’t.”

Calmly, almost _pleasantly_ , the doppelganger looked up to him. “Greater men than you have fallen by my hand. Be very, _very_ careful in how you proceed.”

The wind whipped around them again as silence fell between them, both thickening the air until it felt difficult to breathe. But Vexen was no stranger to gusts, to uncomfortable quiet, to disgust, and so it was his voice that snapped through the cold. “Do you think you can just _scare_ us off? If you think we’re so easily frightened by shadows or noises in the dark, then it’s _you_ who sorely underestimates _us_.” He drew himself up in the way he had when announcing his rank, “We are not mere _humans_. We _live_ in the darkness—we _are_ the darkness. And your petty games of make-believe are _nothing_. We’ve been sidestepping _Zexion’s_ illusions since before he cut his wisdom teeth.” His chin was high and haughty, his voice as brittle as the ice beneath his feet. “We will _not_ be frightened.”

“But you _are_.” The thing was suddenly upon him, perfectly eye-level, barely so much as a hair’s breadth of space between them. Its hand, so small and pale, was a steely vise on the front of Vexen’s cloak, forcing him to bend down. “You’re _terrified_ ,” it said slowly, careful to annunciate its words. Vaguely, it gestured behind itself to Lexaeus. “Not _him_. He’s not—he’s _confused_ …still trying to understand exactly what’s happening here—but _you?_ You’re _terrified_.” 

“Lexaeus,” Vexen said slowly, eyes wide but riveted fully on the copy; he was hardly fool enough to break eye contact with something so predatory. When he received no response, his octave rose despite his best efforts. “ _Lexaeus,_ ” he hissed, voice cracking shamefully; and still there was no sign of rescue coming from his peripheral vision. “What are you _waiting_ for?! _Do_ something about this!”

“He’s not going to hit me, if that’s what you’re hoping for.” Briefly, it glanced over its shoulder to where Lexaeus loomed. “ _Are_ you?” Silence. It turned back to Vexen after clucking its tongue reproachfully, and now there was a cold fire in its eyes. “I didn’t think so. He won’t. But…that’s giving him a _lot_ of credit, now, isn’t it? The word I was looking for is _can’t_. He _can’t_ attack me. See, I look just a _little_ too much like your friend. In fact, I’m willing to stake my life on the assumption that he’s still not entirely sure I’m _not_. Maybe, just maybe, this is some sort of awful, cruel joke.

“Obviously, given how long you both let me traipse around in tow, shooting off orders, it doesn’t seem entirely out of character for him, does it?” Something about the sweetness of its smile reminded Vexen of the cloying reek of formaldehyde. “And what does _that_ say about your tiny little friend? What does it say about _any_ of you, really?”

With the thing’s eyes on him again, Vexen felt his body all but freeze. “ _Hit it!_ ” he ordered frantically, but to no avail. It was immediately apparent that it was right—Lexaeus was unsure. “ _It’s not Zexion!_ ”

“But what if I am?” it asked, the pitch of its voice shifting upwards until it was small and high and childish. The sound stretched and warped like an old record, entirely unsuitable for the mouth it was coming from. “Then again, maybe it’s a ‘once-bitten-twice-shy’ situation, hmm? You’ve already killed him _once_ , what would you do if it happened _again_ …" 

“ _Lexaeus,_ ” Vexen tried once more, wrenching his eyes away from the thing just long enough to feel his stomach drop at the other’s expression. The Hero’s weapon wasn’t even _shouldered_ ; his arms hung weakly at his side.

“I give you the slightest, the most _improbable_ chance that I’m your sad little friend, and _he_ won’t raise a finger against me. Just don’t have it in you, do you?” It turned to look over its shoulder again, its neck craned at such a degree as to make it appear broken. “Can’t run the risk of harming _him_ , right?” A small chuckle before its face turned back to Vexen, “But even wearing his face, using his voice, _you_ …you’d like nothing more than to have me snapped in half, ground into the dirt. Tsk, tsk, tsk…How strange. Here we have, on the one hand, _undying devotion._ ” It shot Lexaeus another look, something almost _fond_ in its gaze. “And on the other, poorly restrained, simmering _contempt._ What on God’s green earth did that boy do to the two of you? What a contentious little figure he is, this friend of yours.

“Then again…that’s not really the right word, is it? ‘Friend?’ I keep using it, but something just…rings hollow about it. Hmm. What word should I use, instead? Teammate? Comrade?” A calculated pause, “ _Oppressor?_ ”

They fell silent at the accusation, eyes narrowed and jaws set for reasons entirely separate.

It slid closer to Vexen, souring the air between them as it tightened its grip on his cloak. He recoiled against the thing’s repulsiveness, grimacing as the street rang out with its laughter again. “And that—that _right there_ —is what I mean. _Fear_. What do you take me for, that you think you could convince me otherwise?”

From his terrible vantage point, Vexen could see the impossible expanding and constricting of the veins beneath the copy’s skin, somehow too dark, too apparent. In that moment, it was every bit Ienzo as he might’ve been a corpse—blood cooling into thickened syrup, complexion greying, eyes fogging with thick cataracts. 

“Do you think I haven’t been watching you? That I don’t see it on your face, plain as those ridiculous eyes bulging out of your skull? I stood beside you in the hospital, I watched you in the apartments, I _heard_ your screeching voice from the other side of town. And even if you _hadn’t_ been running through this world like a scared child, I would’ve known.” It drew even closer, taking in a gasping, choked breath through its nose. “I can smell it on you like _sweat_.” It pulled back just slightly, enough to force Vexen to look at its face in its entirety. “You’ve been on the verge of collapse since the very instant you woke up here.”

It smiled again, something wide and sharp and yet still somehow uncannily _Zexion_ , sending a finger of chill down both Nobodies’ spines. “But let me be _unmistakably_ clear. You can continue to pretend that you’re not afraid yet. However, I would _sincerely_ advise you reconsider that stance. See, we’re not a particularly friendly sort, around here. In fact…I don’t think it’s out of line to say that _I’m_ the most hospitable host you’re likely to run into, and look how you’re treating me.” Jutting out its lower lip in some play on a pout, it shook its head slowly, “This is the thanks I get for trying to help? Maybe I’m beginning to understand why your friend’s here, after all.”

A flicker of an idea. “Make _us_ understand, then,” Vexen spat, hoping against hope that however the thing was getting its information about them, undiluted mind reading was not it. “You keep _toying_ with us all, trying to make us _feel_ something, but you _can’t. We can’t._ ” He released the copy’s wrists, letting his hands fall limply to his sides. “We haven’t been capable of emotion for a long, _long_ time.”

Its eyebrows drew up. “You’d be surprised how often I hear _that_ song. But you…you _reek_ of fear. Fear of harm, fear of abandonment, fear of _failing_.” Turning its head with the same disconcertingly owlish snap as before, it narrowed its eyes in Lexaeus’s direction, “And _you_. I have _never_ , in all my years, seen anyone _half_ so wracked with _guilt_ and _remorse_ as you. It hangs over you like a leaden shadow.”

“We don’t have _hearts_ ,” Vexen said emphatically. “ _We feel nothing._ ”

From low in its check, it made a low, wheezing sort of laugh. “Is _that_ what you believe?” it asked, its grin flickering upon inspection of Vexen’s expression. The shape of its mouth warped into something more contemplative, and again it looked over its shoulder to Lexaeus. Vexen took the opportunity to slide his hand into the pocket of his cloak. “That’s what you believe…” the copy said, voice quiet with revelation. “Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you’re told.”

“Or perhaps _you_ underestimate us.”

Another short, choked laugh. “You think you’re the _first_ men to cross into our world, thinking your chests are free from the weight of your past?” Its eyes were wide and glassy, and for a moment, the strangest sort of fire danced behind them, “You’re all the same. Lying to yourselves, swallowing down the lies of others, gorging yourselves on any and everything that might serve to help you forget—just for _one more day_ —the truth of what you’ve done. Of _who you are_.”

“And just who _are_ we, then?” It was good the thing was still talking…Vexen needed to gather whatever resolve he had left, but the straining of his voice was obvious. The whole scene smacked of a nightmare, some horrid dream he couldn’t wake himself from, and he knew somewhere deep down that if neither of them acted soon, it could very well become their reality.

“As though you don’t already know.” Still, it grinned, the heat from its breath fogging the air around them as it wrapped its tongue around each syllable. “ _Failures_ ,” it spoke slowly. “ _Murderers. Monsters._ ”

“The only monster here is _you_.” And fear was a hell of a thing—despite the numbness creeping in from the chill, the threat of what would happen if he _missed_ —Vexen moved faster than he thought possible, pulling his hand from his pocket and plunging the now uncapped syringe into a dark vein in the thing’s neck, thumb depressing the plunger until the barrel was empty. Had he not lost his scalpel earlier, he might’ve entirely forgotten that he’d stashed the needles away.

There was a moment, long and painful, where the copy simply _stared_ at him; stared at him as though he couldn’t believe the sheer _impudence_ of the action. Seconds stretched into eons, both Vexen and Lexaeus alike struck with the terrible sinking fear that maybe, through the world’s cruel logic, there would be no effect.

And then… _then_ …something in its expression changed. It was minute enough to miss, the widening of its eyes, the slackening of the corners of its mouth, but it filled Vexen with a swell of hope, all the same. It had worked—the doppelganger had been taken entirely by surprise.

The grip on Vexen’s cloak loosened, if only incrementally, but it was more than enough for him to finally wrest himself away. He took a step back, then two, then three, Zexion’s childish face still watching him wordlessly. There was something eerily akin to _hurt_ there, he thought, but an instant later, the creature’s legs gave way, and it toppled to the snowy cobblestone below.

“What was _that?_ ” Lexaeus asked, releasing a tense breath as the world seemed to fall back to life around them, snow falling and water rippling.

Vexen continued to stare down at the felled double, its icy eyes still wrought firmly on him. Coupled with its frozen expression, it looked almost as though it had been caught in some act of teenage rebellion. “Paralytic agent I found in the hospital,” he answered absently, resisting the urge to plant a firm kick to the thing’s chest. “I don’t know how powerful it’ll be. Or how long it’ll last.”

“As good a reason as any to keep moving.”

“Indeed.” With quick, jerky movements, he straightened out his cloak, pulling out the divots formed by the thing’s fingers. There was still a tightness in his ribs, a roiling in his gut, but the overwhelming sense of having _bested_ the horrible little thing…it was proving to be quite the panacea.

“You…failed…last time…”

In unison, they turned, dismayed to find the double’s teeth bared. It still lay prone, limbs and fingers at odd angles, but its eyes never left them, and its voice rose and fell weakly on its staccato breaths.

“You…killed him… _once_ …” it managed to eke out through a grit jaw. “What…makes you…think…this time…will be… _different?_ ”

They looked to each other wordlessly before turning back, briskly retracing their steps to retreat from the fountains. If the thing could still talk, it suggested perhaps they didn’t have as much time as they had hoped. Neither addressed the question it asked, even as they stepped back out into the town proper, taking the path that remained yet unmarred by their footprints.

Neither was sure they had a satisfactory answer.

With their heads down and the wind to their backs, the two walked down the main road, putting as much distance between themselves and the park as possible. There was still an urge, an uncomfortable tug at the back of Vexen’s skull, screaming and pleading to turn tail and run the _other_ way—back to the path the historical society sign pointed to, back to the promise of _escape_ …

But was that desire strong enough to outweigh the fear of being separated again? He chanced a glance in Lexaeus’s direction and found the Hero staring straight ahead, plowing through the snow as though it wasn’t there. Some help _he_ had turned out to be, in all of this. In a land of locked doors and monsters, his brute strength should’ve made him all but immune to the dangers surrounding them. But he wouldn’t even raise his hand to fight when it mattered most.

All because of _Zexion_.

His mood soured further, the cloying voice of the copy still ringing hollowly in his ear. The word the thing had used was “contempt,” but that was _much_ too shallow a word. Lacking a heart was advantageous for a great many reasons, not the least of which being that he didn’t have to expend time nor energy dwelling on _precisely_ what it was that he felt about Zexion. _For_ Zexion. But contempt? Contempt was a miniscule scratch on the tip of the iceberg.

The “undying devotion,” however…well. Suffice it to say, there was no question in his mind that Lexaeus was leaving with Zexion in tow, or not at all.

Not for the first time, he had to stop and wonder if the thing would’ve actually convinced Lexaeus to leave before finding him. If Zexion’s face, his voice, was really all it took to earn the other’s favor. If _Vexen_ hadn’t found _them_ …

When he looked back to the road ahead, he felt his breath hitch in his throat. The dizzying feeling of déjà vu was back, washing over him with torrential force. In an instant, a million memories came flooding back to him, filling his mind with radio static and familiar sounds and smells long-since forgotten. He didn’t even realize he had stopped walking, but realized he _must_ have, because Lexaeus was so far ahead of him. “Lexaeus.” He spoke it, did not call, did not shout, but the wind must’ve carried his voice all the same. His throat felt as though made of sandpaper, and there was the strangest prickling starting behind his eyes. 

“What?” Lexaeus stopped mid-stride, turning back to see what was keeping him. “ _What?_ ” he repeated, furrowing his brow at the other’s expression. He followed his line of sight to the looming mansion just south of them. For the briefest moment, he too was taken aback—there was no reason for a palatial building like that to exist in such a town, surrounded by broken-down shop faces and gutted homes. It stood stories-tall, its entrance flanked by heavy stone columns, its windows bright enough to appear almost _gilded._ “It doesn’t fit here,” Lexaeus said simply, “It doesn’t belong.”

Vexen did not move, nor speak, nor react in any manner, save to continue staring. It was only once he felt the burn of his lungs that he finally moved, exhaling a plume of mist into the air. “I know this place,” he said, shoulders sagging with the realization.

“How? We’ve never been here before.” Even as the words escaped him, something nagged at the very backmost recesses of his memory, suggesting that maybe—just maybe—there was something important he was forgetting.

But Vexen shook his head slowly, the corners of his mouth beginning to tuck down into something apprehensive. “ _You_ haven’t,” he assured Lexaeus, gaze never drifting from the mansion. “But _I_ have.” Before the implication could fully sink in through the wind’s numbing chill, he spoke again. “I know where Zexion is.”


	8. Home Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Body horror, blood, eye trauma, familial dysfunction.

The old key, the one that Lexaeus had found back in the church what felt to be eons and eons ago, fit into the lock perfectly. Still, Vexen turned it with the utmost care, worried that perhaps its old, rust-flaked stem would snap off—but even more worried that it _wouldn’t_.

If the inscription on the key was anything to go off of, they had found themselves at Baldwin Manor. But Vexen knew better; he had been there before, had walked its halls, and the surname of the family the mansion belonged to was most assuredly _not_ Baldwin. At the thought, a heavy shiver ran up the length of his spine, sending prickles of gooseflesh along his neck. 

Even over the sound of the wind, the heavy _thunk_ of the key turning in the lock was unmistakable. 

He drew in a long, steadying breath, gripped the brass handles of the grand double doors, and threw them open wide. For an instant, he stood there, eyes slit in childlike apprehension. When he opened them to properly examine the manor, something deep within him began to spin dizzyingly. 

It was as though his foot had missed a step on a staircase, and he was left to scramble in the air for a moment, searching for purchase that simply wasn’t there.

 _He knew this place_. There had been no question in his mind, from the very moment they’d approached the building. But this…this was not right. 

Before them, there was ruin. The palatial span of the interior was bare but for piles of dust, wads of cobweb, and mounds of rotten wood pulled from the floors. Even with the light shining in from outside, the entryway was dim and uninviting, the air somehow both frigid and stale at once. Support beams, drywall, and insulation leaked from the walls, scenting heavily of ancient mold. 

Vexen was already three steps into the building before he realized it, feeling something leaden taking shape in his gut. As the door shut behind them, the interior fell into perfect, deafening silence; each of Vexen’s steps was accompanied by a pained creaking of the warped hardwood beneath his boots. His hands had tightened themselves to fists at his sides, his lungs strained with the breath he would not release. And still he looked, head slowly turning from wall to wall, surface to surface, puzzled disbelief evident on his sharp features.

Not trusting the floorboards, Lexaeus’s steps were tentative. After a slow, comprehensive scan, he spoke, cringing internally at the wall his voice formed in the silent entryway. “What is it you were expecting to find?” He was answered by only more silence as Vexen turned a corner, disappearing down a dark corridor. Unheeded, he found himself remembering the message he had found crumpled up with the key, back in the old church.

_If you are not prepared to witness the answer, do not ask the question._

Furrowing his brow, he turned in the opposite direction, finding himself in a wide, open space that had most likely served as a dining room of some sort. The floor was littered with shards of what might’ve been crystal, might’ve been glass, sparkling like ice before crunching under his boots. A gaping hole in the high, vaulted ceiling suggested the ruin had once been a chandelier, and offered the briefest glimpse into the unlit room above.

On a whim, he reached out to run a hand along the peeling wallpaper, making a low noise of disgust as it gave way like desiccated flesh, several fat insects scuttling out from the other side. How— _when_ —had Vexen ever come to this place before?

Brushing the debris off of his glove and onto his cloak, he turned back around, following after Vexen. The silence positively _loomed_ in the darkness, pressing down like a weight. It set his teeth on edge, and he found himself clutching the steel pipe even tighter. Though it may have been an old cliché, years of Guard duty had proven time and time again that oftentimes, there _was_ such a thing as too much quiet.

He found Vexen in a gargantuan, sprawling space—what was likely once the foyer, or perhaps even the living area. A wide staircase crept upwards towards the second floor, somehow almost beckoning in its grandiosity. Lexaeus looked upon it for a moment, knowing with unshakable certainty that they would soon be climbing it. “Where are we?” he asked, turning back to Vexen.

The hungry, cavernous hole in the wall had been a fireplace, if Vexen remembered correctly. Its brickwork had been pristine, the pokers always kept just to the right, the grate black and latticed. He looked upon the empty maw pensively, fingers resting over his lips. Slowly, he shook his head, still refusing to answer the question. “This isn’t right…something isn’t right.” He knit his brow and ceased his pacing, “It didn’t show me all of that before just to stop now…”

In five swift steps, he had passed Lexaeus, cautiously testing his weight on each of the stairs as he ascended. The Hero was left to watch him go, expression stony. To him, the other’s mutterings made little sense, but he had long since learned that in this world, not much _did_.

“It’s not right…” Vexen continued to mumble, the second floor straining audibly under his weight. The cogs of his mind were whirring endlessly, turning over everything that had happened since he’d woken up. The surgical ward, the strange slew of notes regarding the two-faced patient, the desperate last words scrawled by madmen, the never-ending maze of the hotel, the cloying jeers of the double…considered together, it was a puzzle. Obviously marked and presented as one unit, but lacking the key pieces that would fit everything together into a cohesive story.

He had been _so close_ to the revelation. Vexen had been so sure that the doors would’ve opened onto a familiar scene, and that, for better or worse, the nonsensical narrative the world had been laying out for them would begin to make sense. But he hadn’t expected _this_ —he hadn’t expected _nothing_.

The second floor branched out into a long hall of doors, many of which had begun to rot on their hinges. If he tried, he could remember the exact order of the rooms that lay beyond them. “This was the study…” he murmured, pressing a hand carefully to a door, bracing himself as it slowly opened at his touch. Nothing lay beyond the threshold but old wood floors and what appeared to have once been a fine chair, now leaning dangerously in the absence of a leg. He turned to the next door and did the same. “The sitting room…” 

Lexaeus watched from the end of the hall, brow knit tightly as he took inventory of their surroundings in a single sweeping look. Nothing about the place rang familiar to him, not even in the furthest recesses of his memory; his attention was wrought on the silence, the cold air, the feeling of _wrongness_. He felt at once at odds—the house was entirely vacant, nothing moving or breathing, and yet he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were not alone.

By the time he turned back, Vexen had already disappeared through one of the doors, leaving little more than a path of dustless floor behind him. Adjusting the weight of the pipe on his shoulder, Lexaeus followed after him, wincing at each strained sound the boards made under his feet.

There was a bed in the corner of the room, small and low to the ground. It was bare, its mattress yellowed with age, but it was the _size_ of it that seemed to give it such a lonely, desolate feeling. Vexen stood in front of it, looking down upon it with an expression that was difficult to parse. His fingers were again pressed tight to his lips, eyes narrowed in thought. “It’s not right,” he said again, looking away from the bed to examine the rest of the room.

“ _Vexen_ ,” Lexaeus repeated, voice a harsh clap of thunder in the silence. Finally, it had the intended effect: Vexen looked toward him, obviously agitated, but attentive. “Where _are_ we?”

Slowly, very slowly, he began to shake his head. “I don’t…I don’t know.” Swallowing audibly, his expression tightened, the shaking of his head intensified. “I _thought_ I knew, but…it’s _empty_. There’s…there’s nothing here.” 

“You said Zexion would be here. Why did you think that?”

“ _I don’t_ _know_.”

“Vexen—”

A flurry of motion as he threw his arms in the air, “It’s where we found…” Vexen stopped and seemed to take inventory of himself, dropping a hand to anxiously knead at his temple with a knuckle. “That’s not the right word,” he said, voice so low Lexaeus almost couldn’t hear, “That’s not the right word at all…” He inhaled a sharp breath. “I thought he would be here,” he began again, measuring each word carefully, “Because it’s where we… _collected_ him.”

Confused, he set an end of the pipe down on the ground, leaning some of his weight against it. “ _Collected?_ ”

Vexen waved a hand dismissively. “After,” he said. “ _After…_ ”

“After _what?_ ”

“His parents.”

“His pare—is this is home?! Is this _their_ home?”

An impatient huff of breath, “I _thought_ …from the outside, it seemed so, but this…this is all just…” Vexen covered his face with both hands for a moment, taking a deep breath before raking his fingers back through his hair. “There’s nothing here. There’s _no one_ here. It’s just another trick that this horrible place is playing on my mind.”

The impulse to deny it was strong and instinctive, but after the time they’d spent in the world, Lexaeus found he couldn’t disagree. Instead, he remained quiet, allowing Vexen to continue his grim exploration. The information had been unexpected, and much as Vexen was struggling to come to terms with the idea that perhaps this was just another dead end, so to was Lexaeus grappling with the idea that this may have been some replication of Ienzo’s home.

It was difficult to imagine him that small again, difficult to imagine him in any environment that wasn’t bright and sterile and white. In all reality, it had always felt as though Ienzo had been born into the labs, some slight, strange creature of the Castle. Lexaeus had never known the parents—in all truth, he’d always been of the suspicion no one _had_. Questions posed to the others had resulted in shrugs or uncomfortable gestures, but never answers. Of course Ansem had known, and now it seemed, so too had Even, but there was not _one_ detail he could recollect regarding Ienzo’s family…much less their untimely ends. Any references to the parents that had left Ienzo behind had always been rushed in nature, vague and ambiguous, like fleeting shadows in a lightning storm.

A thought occurred to him, striking with enough force to rouse him from his contemplating. He looked up to find Vexen had disappeared, and exited out into the hallway to find him once more. “Vexen,” he began, the other pausing in a nearby doorframe, looking like some gaunt vampire, caught on the threshold. “If this world is using our memories against us…why is it that I can see this place? I’ve never _been_ here.” Heavy particles of dust drifted through the air between them, dampening his voice as he spoke, “You said before that you saw things from your memory. Your saw the Gardens. But then the _moment_ someone else joined you, the illusion was broken. Why would this be different? Why now? Why _here?_ ”

A moment of silence, of thought. “I don’t know,” Vexen said, arms folded tensely across his chest. There was something unfamiliar in his voice, something almost wistful, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“You said something else before, something about the world showing you something earlier. What?”

He drummed his fingers against the doorway, heaving out a heavy breath. Nobodies weren’t supposed to feel anything; outside of frustration, ambition, hunger, there shouldn’t have been _anything_. But there it was again—the same bizarre, heavy sensation he’d gotten when he first spied the Gardens through the windows, the one that had revisited him like a ghost when they stepped foot into the park none too long ago. Never before in his life had he experienced any sort of apprehension when reporting a finding. There was never any anxiety or fear or concern when sharing results and observations. And yet…he felt as though his throat might close. It was something he’d realized long ago, but had been trying so desperately to deny, to push down out of his mind. “Back in the apartments…when you and that…” he felt the contents of his stomach begin to curdle, “That _thing_ were looking for me…I saw this house. I don’t know how…but I did. I walked through it, and I watched it… _change_. And at the time, I didn’t want to recognize it. I didn’t want to _remember_ it.” He set his head against his arm, leaning fully against the doorframe, “It was this house. Pieces of it, anyway. Patchwork little memories thrown together. Incomplete. Piecemeal. _Confused_.”

Lexaeus averted his gaze for an instant, trying to think. When he had arrived, the apartments had been nothing more than shells, rife with creatures and the smell of mold. “Those rooms were so small—”

“It _changed_ ,” Vexen repeated, closing his eyes. “Just as you said. It projected something from within me, something I’d pushed so far down…and the instant I wasn’t alone, it was gone. Everything… _shifted_. The decorations, the size, the _architecture_. It became an entirely different place, altogether.”

“You said that this is their home, though, correct? It’s the right building, the right layout…”

“It is. But nothing is _here._ ” Vexen sighed lowly, “It’s still wrong. It’s still _changed._ ” Dourly, he stepped into the room, looking around as though expecting to find Zexion waiting for them.

“Though not changed as drastically as the apartments. Maybe—” But before the thought could take root, a memory of his own clicked into place. “Something similar happened to me, earlier.”

“Oh?”

As though it had happened only moments ago, he remembered the bar with vivid clarity; remembered how the interior had changed, how the floor had patched itself up without so much as a scratch. “Yes,” Lexaeus said slowly, following him into the room, making careful note of the gargantuan section of flooring that was missing. “But _you_ weren’t there.” Almost as if floodgates had opened, his mind began making associations. “The other thing was, though.” Vexen looked back to him warily, face unreadable. “The thing that looks like him.”

He watched as Vexen’s expression changed, eyes widening with some odd combination of realization and indignation. When he pushed himself from the doorframe, it was with a renewed fervor. “ _Damn!_ Of _course!_ ” He pressed his teeth tight against his lips as it all crashed over him like a tidal wave. The hospital, the apartment…every time something had changed, that _thing_ had been with him. But if that were true, it would mean… 

Well, it would mean they truly _weren’t_ alone in the mansion.

The pieces were starting to fit together, and Lexaeus found he couldn’t stop what had already been started. “Every time something changed,” he said, “Every time something shifted, or you felt like you saw something…what was the result?”

“The _result?_ ” Throwing his arms out to his sides, Vexen scoffed, “What do _you_ think? It made me feel as though I were some lunatic! Like I was losing my mind, like I had lost my grip on reality!” He shook his head fervently, hands balling to fists. “I should’ve known, I should’ve _known_ …making me question my own sanity…”

Voice lowered, more to himself than anything, Lexaeus similarly answered the question. “It made _me_ feel inadequate. Like nothing I did was good enough.” He narrowed his eyes slightly, recalling the feeling with a twist of his gut, “Like I couldn’t do anything to help.”

“Yes, as a Guard, I suppose that was a _terrible_ burden on you,” Vexen snapped.

“No worse than a scientist losing his mind, I wouldn’t wonder.”

He grew silent at that, realizing his misstep. “Yes. Well…” he dropped his arms once more, looking out through the door, down the rest of the dark, daunting hallway. “I suppose the question becomes _why_ , then. _Why_ would it exert all of that effort to those ends? Why would it only try and _distress_ us? Insanity, helplessness…neither of those things are particularly deadly.”

“Aren’t they?” Still, he had to agree—it was a bizarre, aimless goal. Lexaeus reached up and scratched absently at the back of his neck as the dull, throbbing ache in his arm reminded him of his injuries. “At first…at first, I thought it was some attempt at divide and conquer. Splitting us up, keeping us from finding each other. Earlier, the thing even said it didn’t want to handle us both at once, wanted to usher us out quickly. Individually. You wouldn’t want to stay if you felt your mind was betraying you. I wouldn’t want to stay if I felt there was nothing I could do. But…” But it just wasn’t holding water with him. There was so much it didn’t explain.

“What a _mystery.”_ At the voice, they whirled around, disappointed but hardly surprised. When Vexen had approached the room only a minute ago, it had been vacant, save for a layer of dust and a few ghostly silhouettes of sheets draped over pieces of furniture; now, the thing reclined upon a covered chaise, wearing its white lab coat and Zexion’s face. Neither was in terribly good condition anymore. “Oh _hello_ again. Not expecting me so soon?” It swung its legs out over the bedframe, taking to its feet with a tight, threatening smile. “That was a dirty, _dirty_ trick you played, back there in the park. And all I wanted to do was help you…”

Driven half by surprise, half by instinct, Lexaeus advanced on it—only to find he was still utterly incapable of striking out. The thing had been right, and he _hated_ it. The lab coat, the blood, the _face_. He looked too much like Ienzo. Even though every fiber of his being knew it for what it _truly_ was, had seen firsthand what it could (and _would_ ) do, if given half the chance…He had played a part in the young Apprentice’s downfall, once. He’d sworn nothing of the sort would ever happen again. So instead, he loomed, hoping it was half as imposing as intended.

The thing smiled serenely, quashing any hope of that. “You know, it’s rude to talk about people when they aren’t present in the conversation. If you wanted to babble on about my motives, you could’ve just _asked_ …”

Vexen had begun to advance as well, but after taking a couple of furious, stomping steps, froze in his tracks. He kept his distance, still a foot or two behind Lexaeus. He remembered their last interaction, and had little interest in getting that close to the creature again.

It seemed to notice this, visible eye alight with glee. “Oh! Look at that, you _are_ able to learn from experience! Well that’s certainly good to know. If nothing else, I’m glad you’ll be taking _that_ away from your time here.” It straightened out the lapels of its jacket, and for the briefest instant, made apparent the gelatinous, congealed mass of blood and gore seeping through its ascot. The bleeding from its nose had increased as though it was broken, and there was a telltale line of red glistening at the waterline of its eyes. Even through all of that, it seemed entirely unaffected. “I was _so_ hoping that the two of you would’ve turned tail and left, by now. I should stop getting my hopes up—you two are so disappointing.”

“Why are you _doing this?_ ” Vexen seethed, voice taught. “What is the _purpose?_ What do you have to _gain?_ ”

“I’m certain I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The thing glanced down, absently picking something from under one of its nails as it shrugged. “What is it, precisely, that I’m being accused of doing, _this time?_ ”

Vexen had opened his mouth again, but it was Lexaeus who spoke, tone even and pipe resting warningly in his hands. “Why have you changed this place? Why does it look like this?”

There was a small sound, a cluck of the tongue, and both shuddered at the unremarkable adolescence of it. Before them, the double’s grin faded into an impatient slash, “This again, hmm? I’ve done _nothing_. _This?_ This _right here?_ This is what this place looks like.” It gestured widely with one welcoming arm, raising and lowering its eyebrows stiffly, not unlike a parent lecturing a child. “Empty, broken, _dead_. This is its natural state. Just because your expectations were different doesn’t mean that this is _wrong_.”

“This is no different than the hospital!” There was a definite snap in Vexen’s voice as he leaned in to speak, still sure to keep Lexaeus between him and the copy. “No different than the apartments! Why should we believe that _this_ is—”

“You should believe me because the truth is _apparent._ This house is hollow. It’s _cold_. It’s _desolate_. Just like the rest of this world.” Its sneer pulled wider, showing the barest hint of teeth in the darkness. “Surely you’ve noticed that by now. There is no _life_ here, not really. Just memories, just echoes.”

“I have no memory of this place,” Lexaeus said.

“How _strange_ ,” the copy replied, its voice full of a resounding sense of _knowing,_ almost gleeful.

“And even so, with no memory, here I am. I can see this place, I can touch its walls. It is perfectly real to me. So why should we believe a word you say?”

Another dramatic sigh, “ _Nightmares_ are terribly real until you wake up and roll over, aren’t they?”

“Do not _play_ with us. We made the mistake of allowing you to live last time. We won’t make that mistake a second time. Now _answer our question._ ”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? I thought you two were supposed to be _brilliant_. Unmatched in your intellect. Clearly, _clearly_ …I was mistaken.” It drew itself up to its full, unimposing height, lifting Zexion’s chin in such a way that its hair shifted to reveal both of its eyes, pupils blown wide and black against sickly yellow sclera. “I am doing _none of this_. I have a few parlor tricks, to be sure—I can rumble a few things around, I can call to the other denizens of this world, but I am _not_ whatever you think me to be. I cannot _do_ what you seem to think I am capable of. I am not a _god_ , I am not an executioner or attendant, or any of the other arbitrary labels you’ve given the things you’ve seen.” Its expression grew serious, its mouth pursed in a tight, flat line. “I am here to _remind_. That is my _only_ purpose.”

Eyes narrowed, body angled away from the rancid thing, Vexen found himself compelled to speak. “To remind and to shoo us away, it would seem.”

“If you _really_ wanted us to leave, you wouldn’t have left me the key to find.” Lexaeus leveled his gaze, masking his disgust as best he could as the waxy, sallow reproduction of Zexion’s face seemed to melt against the thing’s bones. “Because that _was_ you, wasn’t it?” Its smile was answer enough. “If you wanted us to leave, you wouldn’t have let us in.”

“There were _so_ many paths you could’ve taken…” For a second, it seemed almost as if there was something quietly fond in the doppelganger’s voice. It may have just been a trick of the ear, as its voice began to similarly rot as it spoke. It warped and scratched, at times too high, sometimes too low, sometimes as though an entire crowd were speaking as one. It was as though the longer they looked at it, the _closer_ they looked at it, the less like Zexion it became…the more _monstrous_ it became.

“But you didn’t want us _here_.” Vexen found the words had escaped him before he could fully think them through, but the truth was suddenly, glaringly obvious. “You didn’t want us coming this way, you tried to get us to circumvent this place.” He knit his brow as he thought back to the fit they had watched the imposter through, the one that had been punctuated with the stone beast swooping in from above; the moment they had realized they weren’t with Zexion, after all. “He really _is_ here, isn’t he?”

Perhaps it was due to the lack of light, but the copy’s expression seemed to twist into something grotesque for the barest of moments. It continued to speak, ignoring Vexen outright. “I have to admit that I’m disappointed with the results. So many appealing options laid out before you, and _this_ is the path you chose. But all that aside, I simply just…wanted to see what you would do.” Its smile returned, “Your kind are always so _interesting_ to watch. You _squirm_ , you see, you put yourselves through the most rigorous and _bizarre_ acrobatics to keep from remembering what you’ve done wrong…and we don’t get much entertainment around here, these days.”

They both watched it for what could’ve been seconds, could’ve been an eternity, trying not to visibly react to its ghastly appearance. Finally, feeling his throat coated with ice and dust, Vexen spoke up. “Where. Is. Zexion?”

“Such concern! _You_ were never worried about him before…I wonder what changed?” Slowly, with movements that were at once childish and elegant, it sat itself back down on the covered chaise, primly crossing one ankle over the other. “Were you this worried about finding him back in the labs? I don’t think you were. No…I don’t think the idea of concern even _crossed your mind_ until long after they’d already gotten to him.” It chuckled, a wet and croupy sound, shaking its head. “Maybe there _is_ something to what you said about not having a heart. Sounds to me as though you never _really_ had one.”

“It’s toying with you.” Lexaeus spoke low and slow from the corner of his mouth, keeping his eyes riveted on the creature. “Don’t dignify it.”

“Good advice from the man who allowed _everyone_ under his protection to be swallowed up by darkness.” Its smile was cloying, now. _Mocking_. “You didn’t even see it coming, did you? Tsk, tsk, tsk…no, by then, he had you so wrapped around his little finger, you wouldn’t have been able to act if you’d had all the time in the world. That’s what happens when you place _all_ your faith into a narcissist, you know. Every player needs its pawns.”

Ire reaching its slow-boiling peak, Lexaeus leaned further in, looming over the thing as he closed the space between them. “You can tell us where he is, or we can continue cutting a path through you, and the rest of this world’s monsters. It’s your choice.” 

“ _Monsters?_ ” At that, it laughed—long and slow, chin tipped back and eyes closed. “We look like _monsters_ to you?” The smile was back, crueler and sharper than ever, eyes bright with _glee_ as it straightened back up to rest its hands on the cushions to either side of it. “No, really, are you being serious with me? Because that…is _golden_. You see _monsters_ when you look at them…Do you, perchance, know what _I_ see when I look upon my brethren?”

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the quiet creaking of the floorboards. Both Nobodies stood their ground, maintaining eye contact with the beast, though it sent their stomachs churning. Neither wanted to hear the answer; both were afraid they already knew.

The hooks of its grin became deeper, “ _Yours_.”

There was a sudden thrum, as though a generator had kicked on, sending heavy waves of vibrations through their chests. A click, two, three—and lights began to flicker into life above them, filling the room with a dull yellow glow.

The double looked up to the lights, its black eyes reflecting them, not unlike a predator in the night. It was only once the quaking began that it turned back to Vexen and Lexaeus, mouth wide and bloody. “Uh oh…” it spoke, voice skipping like an old record. “I think we may have been carrying on a bit too loudly...”

Neither had the chance to ask what it meant by that.

As the room became illuminated, changes began creeping in from the very edges of their periphery. The transformation was slow at first, and then almost all at once; plush carpeting sprouted from the hardwood like a field of grass following a storm, the holes and rot eating through the walls were patched and forgotten, the sheets melted from off of the furniture and into thin air to reveal ornate upholstery perfectly free of dust and mildew and age. Wallpaper crept down from the ceiling, spreading delicate designs throughout the room like a fungus, gilded frames hanging themselves on unseen tacks.

Lexaeus felt his mouth run dry as the room shifted around them, felt his head spin as the chilly air became warm and choking. When he turned, the nearly all the color had drained from Vexen’s face, the pallor making him seem much older than he was. “A little more familiar _now?_ ” he asked lowly, finding his voice locked deep in his throat.

Struggling to find his own words, Vexen simply nodded, wide-eyed as he looked about the room. “Yes,” he finally managed, though his voice, too, was tight. “Very familiar, indeed.”

There was a soft sigh from behind them. “I hate to ruin this moment, truly, I _do_. But I think it would be in your best interests to leave from here.”

Facing the doppelganger, Lexaeus narrowed his eyes. “We aren’t—”

“Leaving without your friend, yes, yes, I know—you’ve said as much once or twice during our brief time knowing each other—but that isn’t what I meant. No, I meant the two of you might want to consider leaving this _room_. Or perhaps even this part of the manor, see…” Still smiling, it shrugged its small shoulders before pointing a single, bony finger towards the hall, directly behind the two of them. “ _They_ are not particularly pleased that you’re here, is all.”

With a low sound of displeasure, Vexen followed the other’s line of sight, already wracked with apprehension.

At first, it was hard to see anything but the faintest displacement of air, not entirely unlike waves of heat rising from the ground. Something in the hall seemed to flicker, wavering just out of sight. It began to move in from one side of the door, rolling across the floor like thick, colorless fog. Another plume appeared, lazily billowing from the other side. For an instant, it seemed as though the room were filling with smoke.

And then they rose—human-shaped in only the vaguest sense, made of ozone and static come to life. They were almost impossible to see, nothing more than shimmering wisps of air and an occasional electrical crackling. Whatever they were, they were imposing in their abstraction, at once ushering Vexen and Lexaeus further into the room and blocking the doorway, filling the air and their ears with whispers that were at once deafening and almost too quiet to be heard. 

Without thought, Lexaeus lashed out with the pipe, balance thrown off as it sliced through air and nothing more, both shapes entirely unaffected by the blow. He stumbled to catch himself just as one of the bizarre entities moved forward, obscuring his view with translucent film, the noise in his ears growing louder and softer in one maddening swell. The movement was so sudden, the lack of substance so jarring, that he was unable to right himself; he staggered to gain hold of his footing, but instead felt the horrible rush of falling. It was then that he remembered the hole in the floor. But there was _carpeting_ there, he had just watched the room shift to fix itself…Still, he found himself dropping like a stone, air whirling around him for what seemed like minutes before he finally hit the ground, knocking the breath from his chest.

Vexen watched, frozen by shock and dull horror as the amorphous beings crept forward, as Lexaeus fell, as the copy heaved another dramatic sigh.

“How _dreadful_ ,” the thing wearing Zexion’s face said, though it made no effort to mask the mockery in its voice. “It appears you’ve woken the baby. Ah well…” And with that, it reached out, taking firm hold of Vexen’s shoulder before shoving with all its might, sending him careening down in the same manner as Lexaeus.

He had the briefest impression of color and light and movement before he landed, body hitting the floor with a terribly visceral sound. His vision momentarily went black and spotty, his lungs constricted past the point of taking in air, the back of his head thrumming and throbbing with immeasurable pain.

Lexaeus had managed to sit up by then, eyes closed, hand pressed to the crown of his head as he waited to regain his senses. He cracked an eye and immediately recognized the room they were in, lifting his gaze slowly upwards to the vast, sparkling chandelier above. “There was…a hole…in the ceiling,” he said, closing his eyes again, wincing against the stabs of agony each word sent through his head. “We fell through…”

Shakily, Vexen rose onto his elbows, drawing in a painful gasp of air as the hold on his throat finally lifted. “Don’t be _stupid_ ,” he snapped, voice tempered with pain and shock. “There’s no _hole_ there, _look_.”

“I _see_ that.” Talking was still hard, the pulsing behind his eyes only beginning to lessen from the impact. “Illusion,” Lexaeus managed to mutter. He swallowed hard, throat clicking with the effort. “Nothing’s changed. Not really. It just…” he shook his head, slowly easing himself to his feet. “It just wants us to _think_ it did.” As though to prove the point to himself, he ran his hand along the wall as he’d done earlier, watching with a furrowed brow as his glove disappeared seamlessly into the wallpaper. There was still a hole, there was still decay. It was just _hidden_ , now.

Vexen stood carefully, watching Lexaeus with what might’ve been intrigue, had his head not been pounding so badly. “How are you doing that?”

“I’m _not_ ,” he answered, pulling his hand back out, flicking away another horrendous insect as it clung to his glove. “Like I said. It’s just an illusion—”

The lights shuddered out again, darkness and silence crashing over the mansion like a thick, heavy blanket. Immediately, Vexen put his arms out to either side, feeling his way for purchase—his head was still spinning, but in that moment, he was back in the apartments, stumbling around in the dark, praying that nothing would brush against his hands but the solid purchase of a wall. Underneath his glove, something _moved_ , and he drew in a shrill gasp.

Though his eyes had yet to adjust to the sudden darkness, Lexaeus managed to cover the lower half of Vexen’s mouth with his glove. The motion was abrupt, but he thought Vexen could forgive him, as it served the dual purpose of showing who it was he’d bumped into, and silencing him. When he felt the other grow still, he lowered his hand to Vexen’s chest for a brief instant in a sign he hoped was understood.

 _Wait_.

For a moment, the silence enveloped them, pressing hard against their eardrums. And then, from above, there was a delicate tinkling sound, fragile and quiet in the pitch-blackness. The chandelier.

Lexaeus narrowed his eyes, squinting against the darkness as a faint glimmer made itself apparent near the ceiling. It had been brief—just a flicker—but he found himself instantly on guard. There was another quick flash, and he was struck with the image of a predator in the night, eyes glowing as they stalked their prey.

Above them, the chandelier grew silent once again. 

And then…

The room filled with laughter.

“No.” There was a notable waver in Vexen’s voice as the papery sound of glee bounced from wall to wall, doubling on itself until it seemed as though an entire crowd cawed at them. “Nonononononono _no!_ Not _again!_ ”

“ _Again?_ ”

Without thought, he began to crouch in the darkness, subconsciously pulled towards the center of the room, away from the walls, away from the ceiling. “I know what it is…in the hospital, I…don’t let it _grab_ you.”

The warning was cryptic, but the panic that came with it was more than enough to convince him of the situation’s gravity. His glove strained against the metal of the pipe as he waited, waited, waited…until his face was flooded with the heavy stench of putrefying meat.

It took a few seconds to realize something was _breathing_ on him. By then, he had already sensed its presence through some kind of blindsight, tracking the darkness to try and make out a silhouette. To his confusion, a faint light, yellowish-orange in color, appeared before him in a low crescent shape. As the crescent grew, it revealed itself for what it truly was: an eye. Its pupil swiveled towards him, shuddering this way and that, as though giving him a thorough once-over.

From somewhere farther back in the mansion, the heady thrum began anew, and the lights clicked back to life.

The creature before him was hardly more than skeletal remains, torn flesh hanging on bones and sinew; its eye sockets were wide open and vacant, leaving him to puzzle for only a moment before it opened its mouth. From behind its teeth, the bright eye stared back. And then the thing began to scream.

Lexaeus pulled back, whirling to get a look at what he faced. Like some terrible insect, the creature clung to the wall, acting as though gravity had no bearing. It stood tall as it undulated towards him, walking on joints that swelled and groaned beneath its desiccated flesh.

The skin of its face split into a visceral smile, revealing the entirety of its jaw and the decaying muscles beneath, and it coughed another asthmatic laugh before springing impossibly _upwards_ , bracing itself on the vaulted ceiling with its hands before planting its feet.

“What…” Lexaeus began. But he found his words taken from him as the creature straightened itself up once more, feet firmly on the ceiling, hanging perfectly upside down like some deformed bat. It was then that the déjà vu returned. In a show of uncharacteristic disbelief, his own mouth fell agape. “That’s…”

“ _I know. Who. It. Is._ ” Vexen forced out through grit teeth, eyes riveted on the creature as its gangly arms dangled above them, fingers contorting with threatening spasms. He didn’t need to be reminded of what the double had said; the resemblance had always been there, lurking in the back of his mind. “ _Just kill it!”_

As though trying to harmonize, the skeletal abomination opened wide its mouth, shrieking at the top of its lungs. The sound alone sent the glass droplets of the chandelier shaking again, creating a horrible, echoing cacophony through the room. It launched itself from the ceiling, landing in a low crouch on the banquet table; it swiped out with one of its unnaturally long arms, but Lexaeus shoved Vexen away before he could be struck. The thing whirled towards the affront, opening its mouth in a horrible, rasping laugh. Again, the bulbous, bloodshot eye was made apparent, its pupil constricting into a slash as it focused in on Lexaeus.

Pipe gripped tightly, he swung, connecting with the side of its head. The thing screamed again, loud and high enough to send a dagger of pain behind Lexaeus’s eyes, and jumped with the force of the blow. It anchored itself on the wall beside him, leaning forward to shriek again, its hot, carrion breath sending the Hero’s stomach churning. With an eerie adeptness, it grabbed the other end of the steel pipe, tugging with brutal strength.

“Its _eye!_ ” Vexen yelled from somewhere behind them. “Its eye is its weak point!”

Lexaeus fought the urge to shoot him a withering look—if ever there was a moment where advice was unsolicited, _this_ was it. Instead, he gave the monster what it wanted. With all of his strength, he pushed the pipe in its direction, watching as what might’ve been construed as confusion registered on its featureless face. Then, without warning, he jerked the pipe to the side, twisting his torso to follow through. 

Wrenched from the wall, the leathery thing fell to the ground, writhing in shock like a swatted insect. It turned its head and its jaw fell open impossibly wide, eye indignant as it screamed up at Lexaeus. It was not a pleasant sound by any stretch of the imagination, but even less now that he recognized it for what— _who_ —it was.

“Its _eye!_ ” came Vexen’s voice again. “Its _e—”_

The end of the pipe was jagged and sharp, open in a perfect O; with Lexaeus’s titanic strength behind it, it had no issue cutting through papery flesh and bone, goring the felled thing cleanly through the sternum.

It made a wet, gasping noise—and for a moment, it sounded almost _human_. If possible, its mouth opened wider still, revealing the molars of its skull, the quivering hint of a throat as it struggled for breath. The pupil of its eye widened, as though in recognition, and the corners of its distended mouth turned up in a gruesome smile. It began to laugh.

Lexaeus brought the heel of his boot down squarely onto the eye.

The creature might’ve made another sound, but Vexen was deaf to it, suddenly doubled over in a wracking retch of his stomach. He felt the color drain from himself, his extremities weak and trembling as he leaned against the wall. When he found he was able to collect himself long enough to turn, Lexaeus had already scraped the remnants of the final strike off of his boot and onto the carpet. The sight of the smear sent another pang of nausea through Vexen’s gut. “Was that _entirely necessary?!_ ”

Looking at him then, Vexen noticed the dark shadows under Lexaeus’s eyes for the first time, realized just how gaunt his cheeks looked. Sometimes understanding took its toll. “What is going on here?” he asked finally, voice distressingly devoid of intonation. “Why would that…why would it remind me…” He paused, brow furrowing as his gaze took on a new light as he remembered the stone creature from the church, the one with the wings and the amethyst eyes. He felt his knees begin to weaken. “No…”

“’ _They look like monsters to you.’_ ” Vexen repeated the double’s words dourly, dropping his head into his hands. “Of course they do.”

“Why would he…why would _they_ be monsters? Were you…were you _afraid_ of them?”

Exhausted as he was, disgusted as he was, Vexen still found it in himself to bristle in indignation. “Of _course not!_ I _hated_ them, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t _afraid_.” He straightened back up, chin up in a show of arrogant pride that was completely and utterly inappropriate in that moment. “They were _nuisances_ , and they were _brutes_ , but I wasn’t _scared_ of them. One would have to be a _child_ to be _afraid_ of—”

The revelation he’d been so desperately seeking hit him like a blow to the stomach, sending him reeling for purchase. All at once, it made sudden, horrible, _perfect_ sense. 

“It’s not us…it’s not us, it was _never_ us,” Vexen’s voice was harried, taut with realization and strain.

“What?” Lexaeus asked, joining him from the scene of the carnage. “What do you—”

“This world isn’t using _our_ memories,” he said, unable to control the way the words spilled from his mouth like vomit. “It was _never_ using _our_ memories—it’s using _Zexion’s.”_ Immediately, he recalled the way the double had laughed at them. There had been so many uncanny instances, so many specific details that it seemed only logical that the world had been peering into each of their heads. But now, all of the pieces beginning to fit together, it made a startling amount of sense.

Ienzo had grown up alongside them, he had lived and studied and trained astride them for so long… _of course_ there was overlap. The memories had been Vexen’s, but not Vexen’s _alone_ , they had been Lexaeus’s, but not Lexaeus’s _alone_ …because Zexion had always been there. _Ienzo_ had always been there.

And Ienzo, on _some_ level, it seemed, had been afraid of the Guards. Not _just_ the Guards, though...no, there had been other nightmarish caricatures shambling through the town. As he thought on it, the similarities became horrendously obvious. “We need to leave this place.”

“We do.” 

Suddenly, it felt _imperative_ to escape; not that the urge hadn’t been strong before, but this was something neither had anticipated. It had been terrifying to think the world was using their own memories, their own fears against them. It was something else entirely to realize it _wasn’t_. They were both well aware of their own fears, their own regrets, their own nightmares.

But to contend with what lived in _Zexion’s_ mind…

“He has to be here,” Lexaeus spoke lowly, eyes scanning the ceilings for signs of anything amiss. “You said it yourself…it didn’t want us here.”

“It most certainly did not. And what were those other things?!”

Lexaeus shouldered the pipe once more, shaking his head as he walked past Vexen. “I don’t plan on lingering long enough to find out.”

Entirely in agreement, Vexen followed along after him, exiting back out into the main hall. Momentarily, his eyes were caught by the bright, gleaming white hint of a room behind a partially opened door. Much as he protested, his feet felt somehow outside of his control, not entirely unlike a tongue prodding at a rotting tooth. He pushed the door open and walked into the kitchen he’d examined before, back in the apartments. Everything was pristine—the table set for a meal, silverware shining atop painstakingly folded napkins. There was a smear of dark red lipstick on the rim of one of the wineglasses.

An illusion, he knew, but still it sent him immediately back to those days—that _day_ when they had taken the boy. 

There was a flicker, no longer than a blink of the eye, and the room revealed itself for what it really was. The glass smudged and broken, the walls crumbling, the table’s centerpiece no more than dust. The flash of reality had a jarring effect, and suddenly the sterile white light of the room seemed terribly uncanny; an embroidered burial shroud wrapped around an ancient and putrid corpse. He backed out of the kitchen as though worried of what might happen, were he to take his eyes from it.

When the door swung shut behind him, he turned, spotting Lexaeus near the main entrance. “There are other rooms down this hall,” he said, “And perhaps a wine cellar, if my memory is correct, but—” He was stopped by an insistent grip on his arm, and when he turned, he found himself looking up to Lexaeus’s sharp profile. “What?” he asked, trying to tug free to no avail. “ _What?_ ” Following the other’s line of sight, the ‘what’ became blatantly clear.

Just as the other rooms had seemed to spring back to life, so too had the open area he’d paced through before. The old wood of the floor had been painstakingly polished to a reflective sheen, gleaming a rich mahogany in the light. What had only minutes ago been a gaping hole in the wall was now the fireplace he remembered so vividly, brickwork immaculate, grate black and ornate, a blazing fire casting a faint orange glow on the room. Above it was a monumental portrait, its frame gilded and gleaming.

“Are those his parents?” Lexaeus asked, voice almost reverent in its softness.

The central figure in the painting was hard to mistake—Ienzo had always been a singular child, with his knowing eyes and greying hair, all starkly at odds with his miniscule frame and soft cheeks—but the man and woman to either side of him…

“Yes,” Vexen answered somberly, before pausing. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look at the image across the room. Blinking hard, he reared back slightly. “No,” he said, on second thought, and then, “Maybe.”

It shouldn’t have been so hard to tell. He could make out their forms well enough, both thin, posture regal and stiff, but the moment his eyes drifted to their faces…He was struck immediately with the memory of the photographs he’d seen in the ever-changing hallway of the apartment. It was as though he was looking at them through water, their features in a constant state of flux. Odder still, if he looked for too long, the features that became clearest to him pointedly resembled Zexion’s.

He, himself, had on occasion remarked that the boy had his mother’s jaw, his father’s eyes, but…It was almost as if the portrait were literally transposing pieces of Zexion’s face onto his parents’ forms. 

Vexen chalked it up to some lesser psychological process trying to make sense of the confused and scrambled images before them. “I…can’t tell,” he finally admitted, looking away before the whirling in his head could erupt into a full-blown headache.

Instead of questioning him, Lexaeus seemed to accept his answer. “What were they like?” he asked after a moment, voice still so terribly, terribly low, as if worried the dead might overhear him speaking of them. “His parents?”

If possible, that question was even harder to answer.

“They were…” He pursed his lips into a grimace, feeling he had been tasked with solving one of the world’s greatest mysteries. So many words came to him in a cacophonous flood: complicated, austere, cold, _horrible_. At once they all felt right, and at once they all felt insufficient. “Well. Let’s just say Ienzo behaved the way he did for a _reason_.” That didn’t feel like answer enough, either. “And Zexion is who _he_ is for a reason.”

Thankfully, Lexaeus seemed to accept this as well. But his attention had already shifted, it seemed, as he began to take a step forward into the room. “That chair wasn’t there before.”

And it certainly had not been. But to be fair, Vexen thought, _nothing_ had been there before. Not the heavy crimson drapes hanging from the windows, not the dark runner leading up the grand staircase, nor the framed photographs and paintings crawling up the wall leading to the second floor. Still, he trailed behind Lexaeus, pausing only momentarily when, upon crossing the threshold into the room, the air filled with the faint sound of an old record spinning. The fine hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end. The air seemed to crackle around them, growing charged with electricity, ozone, dread. “ _Don’t_ ,” he said, as Lexaeus approached the back of the armchair. Foolish as it was, he realized he’d already raised both hands in defense. “I don’t like this.”

He shot him the briefest of glances, wrought with reproach, before he rounded the chair. “ _Zexion,_ ” he said, the name escaping him like a held breath as he knelt down.

No less apprehensive, Vexen approached from the other side of the chair to join him. And there he was, eyes closed and head rested against one of the chair’s wings, arms resting to either side of him. “ _Don’t_ ,” Vexen repeated through grit teeth. “It might be the other one…” 

“It’s. _Not_.” Lexaeus was firm, bordering on furious. “He’s wearing his cloak, it’s him.”

He made a small sound of dissent through his nose, but they had come this far looking for Zexion, it wasn’t as though they could stop—or _leave_ —just because Vexen had a bad feeling. Still, he watched with his arms crossed tightly across his chest as Lexaeus nudged the smaller Nobody awake, wary of what their reunion might hold.

It took much longer to rouse Zexion than it should’ve, they both noted, given how light of a sleeper he was. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and they were both struck with how very, very _blue_ they were. Had Zexion’s eyes always been so _blue?_ For the briefest of moments, he was Ienzo again, all big, wide eyes and melancholic pouts. Only Lexaeus, close as he was, could see the real cause: his pupils had constricted impossibly, until they were hardly more than pinpricks, as if the light in the room was too bright for him to handle. 

“Zexion,” Lexaeus spoke, his relief evident in the low rumble of his voice. “Are you injured?”

The wavering, muted sound of the record played on as Zexion stared at him— _through_ him. He said nothing, _did_ nothing, and save for the smooth rise and fall of his shoulders and chest as he breathed, hardly moved. He blinked once, heavily, like a child with a head cold, and when he opened his eyes again, they were on Vexen. There was an eerie stillness to his gaze, such focused contemplation…It was impossible to not think of Ienzo.

He felt wrought to the ground by that stare, felt like every insect or amphibian he’d tacked to foam to practice cutting into. An icy hot bloom of fear spread across his back, sending tendrils creeping down towards his gut, wending through his ribs. “We need to leave,” Vexen said, not at all sure whether the sentiment had been meant for Zexion, Lexaeus, or himself.

Zexion looked back to Lexaeus, some trace of life returning to his eyes. Something sharpened in his gaze as recognition registered, and as though his head was on a swivel, he turned to regard Vexen once more with his newfound understanding. For a moment, there was nothing. And then, the faintest crease appeared between his brows. “You’re not real,” he stated, a small, sad hint of wonder echoing in his tone.

The other two exchanged a brief, apprehensive look. “Zexion, we ha—”

“You’re not _real_ ,” he repeated, voice firm and loud enough to send a shockwave through the room, enough to send the unseen record skipping against its needle.

They felt it long before they saw it—the strange static crackling charging the air like lightning. By the time either realized what had happened, their feet were off the ground. As though in a nightmare, there was the most uncanny sensation of being suspended in the air, movement strained and slow, accompanied by the lurching feeling of falling. But as quickly as it had begun, the feeling was cut short, both Nobodies sent hurtling through the room to land heavily at the base of the staircase.

Lexaeus was the first to recover from the attack, pushing himself first to his elbows, and then his knees. “He still has his powers.”

“ _You don’t say_ ,” Vexen shot back, the sting of his candor lessened by the way he wheezed the words out, the breath having again been knocked from him. It took him longer to right himself, but when he did, everything seemed to burst to life around them.

The scratching whine of the record was suddenly accompanied by an inhuman howl as the wind whistled around the exterior of the mansion, all but _screaming_ as it rattled the windows in their panes and shook the doors on their hinges; a burst of concentrated air shot down from the chimney with a sound like a banshee’s wail, extinguishing the fire and chilling the room.

Zexion rose from the armchair slowly, his back to them. He seemed utterly unaffected by the wind, save for the faint rustling of his hair and cloak. As he stood, the chair began to sink down into the flooring, melting out of reality. So too did the remainder of the furniture, everything simply dissolving through the polished floors, disappearing from existence until all that remained was the three of them and whatever was tacked to the walls. When he turned to them, there was something… _wrong_ about his posture, something off. It was too subtle to name, but there, all the same. Eyes narrowed, the hem of his cloak whipping around his legs, he spoke two words, the wind carrying his voice until it filled every small crevice of the room. 

“ _Get. Out.”_

“Why’s he _doing_ this?!”

Lexaeus shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said…or at least attempted to. Over the wind, it was all but impossible to hear _anything_ that wasn’t Zexion or the damned record squealing. After a deep breath, he tried. “ _Zexion!_ ”

Before he could continue, the screaming of the wind intensified, drowning everything out, but for the pained howling of the Schemer. In front of the fireplace, Zexion had clamped his hands over his ears, eyes screwed shut and teeth bared in what seemed to be absolute agony. “ _Stop!_ ” he roared, taking them both aback; when had Zexion _ever_ raised his voice? When he had _ever_ spoken above a calm drone? The strain in the sound was terribly human, horribly visceral, as if Lexaeus had stabbed him, instead of simply saying his name. “ _You’re not_ real,” he repeated, hands gripping tighter and tighter until they were fists in his hair, “He’s _not_ real. _None of this. Is. Real.”_ When he raised his head again, he was panting, the rising and falling of his shoulders deep and jerky with exertion.

Lexaeus realized it first, a good minute or two before Vexen, precisely what was so wrong about the way Zexion was holding himself. He was tired.

No, no, it was more than that…he was _exhausted_. The moment the thought occurred to him, it became impossible to understand how he hadn’t seen it immediately. He had been run ragged. He was pale, he was wracked with tremors, and the dark shadows under his eyes had become particularly pronounced.

“ _Don’t_.” The word was snapped, cracking through the air like a whip as Lexaeus attempted a step towards him.

The two held each other’s gaze for an eternity, and Lexaeus realized something else—through the fever-brightness of his eyes, he didn’t think Zexion was seeing much. Not much grounded in reality, anyway, not much beyond the world’s illusions. Lexaeus held his hand up, carefully setting down the heavy pipe with the other before raising it as well, a universal sign of meaning no harm. “You’re not well,” he said slowly, speaking only at his natural timbre, having the strangest feeling Zexion would hear him above the wind, all the same. “We just want to help.”

“ _DON’T!”_ Zexion yelled again, driving his arms down to his sides as Lexaeus chanced another step. The air around him seemed to shift, suddenly shimmering with dark wisps of void; he was certainly still in control of his powers.

There was a sudden lurching beneath him as the floor, the mansion, the _world_ began to quake. The earth heaved with enough force to jar them from their stances, uproot them wholly, and it was then that one of the hardwood planks Lexaeus stood upon dropped out from under him. He stepped back quickly, grabbing up the pipe before it could tumble into the abyss below, planting his feet solidly on the ground. He and Vexen watched on in perplexed terror as one by one, pieces of the floor seemed to fall away, leaving the floor pocked with wide open gaps. They found themselves driven back by the phenomenon, stumbling sans decorum until they were over the threshold of the room, pushed far back from Zexion and the stairs.

They watched as Zexion, too, took a careful step back, then two, then three, but it was only after a moment that they realized the holes in the floor meant little to him. One delicate step across a gaping gash in the wood made clear two possibilities: it was just another illusion warping the world around them, or he was levitating. It was difficult to say which was worse.

Vexen shook his head, “He has his powers—we must, too. We must too. Just…” He reached his hand out, willing every fiber of his being to call forth his shield, or to slick the floor with ice, or to push back against the whirling wind with a chilly gale of his own. But there was nothing. “We _just_ …”

“There are no rules here,” Lexaeus said, making one futile effort to summon his own weapon. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

And then, slowly, something began to rise from out of the hole nearest them.

It crept out from beneath the floor before falling prone on one of the remaining wood planks for a moment, seemingly getting its bearings. Pale though it was, it had flesh, skin, nails…it was much too round, much too soft to belong to any of the creatures they’d encountered. Neither had any intent of bending down to more closely examine it, but there was no question as to what it was.

A child’s hand.

More rose up, growing from the darkness underneath the floor, reaching up and up like terrible blossoms after a rainstorm. They varied in size, in perceived age, in shape, but they all stretched from impossibly long arms, their fingertips almost creating a new floor where the wood had fallen away. Zexion seemed not to notice.

He took another warning step forward, and one of the hands closed down around his boot. He settled his gaze onto the two standing just at the edge of the room, raising his chin almost haughtily as he watched them. Tens of pale fingers gripped onto the hem of his cloak, keeping it from billowing as they anchored him to the ground. “If you won’t leave,” he spoke slowly, “I’ll _make_ you.”

“Or _we_ will.”

At once, both Vexen and Lexaeus cringed, teeth gritting at the sudden dissonance. The words were there, in their heads, as though they had been spoken, but there had been no voice. Even in their minds, there had been no sounds. They weren’t thoughts, they weren’t images, they were _words_ , real _words_ in their ears, but spoken without sound. That in and of itself felt almost jarring enough to be considered an attack.

When they looked up, the strange, shapeless fog from earlier had gathered at the top of the stairs, the amorphous cloud standing like a transparent sentinel on the landing. The mist started rolling down the stairs at a snail’s pace, swirling pointedly as it drifted. And gradually, the mass separated into two. One remained atop the stairs, the other crept slowly down towards the floor.

Then they began to take shape.

The one nearing Zexion changed first, the metamorphosis seeming both too slow to miss, and too rapid to register, all at once. At first, it appeared to be a trick of the light, the fog again taking on an almost human shape. But by the time it had reached the middle of the staircase, the details had sharpened to the point where Vexen swore he could see a delicate hand trailing down the banister. Another few steps, and the satisfying click of high-heeled shoes could be heard with each step, accompanied by the faint rustling of fabric.

At the sound, Zexion turned towards the stairs, a visible change coming over him. His shoulders sagged with what might’ve been relief, the features of his face softening. The corners of his mouth began to curve upwards, his eyebrows drawn together almost fondly. Another hand reached up from beneath the floor and clutched at his boot, its knuckles white with its grip.

When it reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping primly onto one of the remaining wood planks, the thing was no longer mist. It was a woman.

She walked towards Zexion, tenderly setting a hand against his cheek as she grew near enough. He seemed to lean into the touch, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. And then she turned to Lexaeus and Vexen.

This time, it was Lexaeus who drew in a harsh breath of surprise.

From afar, the figure had certainly looked to be a person, but just then…looking at them like that…If it was looking at them _at all_ …

Whatever it was, it had no face. Not for long, at the very least. There was an odd, ambient fuzziness to the figure, as though it had no real boundary lines, no edges. For brief, flickering instants, it would take on features before they disappeared once more: eyes that seemed just a bit too large, bow-shaped lips, beauty marks, mismatched eyebrows, dark bangs. Everything about it was impermanent, in a constant state of flux. One moment it seemed to be young, then middle-aged; its hair was plaited in a neat braid, then hanging loosely, then tucked behind one ear. The only thing that seemed constant was the dark dress it wore, the small oval pendant hanging from a chain around its neck.

So focused on the strange creature, they hadn’t noticed that the other shape had rolled its way down the stairs as well. In one harsh, staccato movement, it had appeared between the four of them, as though creating some barrier between Lexaeus and Vexen and whatever was going on with Zexion.

It seemed even less cohesive, its shape flickering like television static, only occasionally revealing details as to what it may have been. A suit jacket, perhaps, or some sort of blazer. Neatly parted hair, then a cowlick. The only thing they could say with certainty was that it had Zexion’s eyes. It had Zexion’s eyes _exactly_.

“You’re not welcome here.” The words came again, this time different, deeper somehow, but still utterly and impossibly voiceless. The thing was talking to them, though it had no mouth. “ _Leave us_.”

How could Zexion not react? How could he nestle himself against the other thing’s touch? Couldn’t he see what they were? Couldn’t he see what they _weren’t?_

But then, horribly, it all began to come together. “Oh, God,” Lexaeus said, voice low enough to easily be missed, but ringing with echoes of emotion hollow enough to put a pit in Vexen’s gut. “Oh _God._ He doesn’t remember their faces…” He turned to Vexen, brow furrowed deeply, “He doesn’t remember _what they look like_.”

And suddenly it all came crashing down upon him, cold and humbling as an avalanche: the out-of-focus photographs on the apartment walls, the blurry figures in the mirrors, the ever-changing features of the monstrous faces before them. The world was _trying_ to project Ienzo’s memories, _trying_ to remind him of his pain…but it couldn’t even do _that_. There were barely any memories of his life before the labs still intact. There were barely any memories of his _parents_ left for it to twist.

Somehow, that felt _worse_ than simply facing down another monster.

This time, it was he who called out, “ _Zexion,_ ” so disgusted at the thought of the tenderness he shared with the strange creature. Immediately, all three heads of the terrible little family snapped to him, and for that moment, they all shared one face, contorted with indignant rage.

Zexion wrenched one foot free from the fingers dragging him down towards the floor, and the howling of the wind suddenly sounded much more akin to the mournful wails of what—or _who_ —ever was reaching for him from below the boards. He walked atop the palms and fingertips as though they were nothing more than a smooth platform, the figure of his mother wavering, flickering as he stepped even further back, away from her.

It did not take Vexen long to regret speaking out. “He still has his powers,” he reminded himself flatly.

“He still has his powers,” Lexaeus agreed, lifting his eyes from the strange structure of the father as it further warped before them to regard the dark, swirling vortexes rending the ceiling.

The air of the room swirled and crackled, at once briskly cold and chokingly close, making it hard to breathe. Advancing with the slow calculation of a predator, Zexion suddenly rose up, up, _up_ , the arms below him stretching to grotesquely inhuman heights; the moment he stood still, the fingers clutched onto him again, rooting him to the spot. Gaze never faltering from the two of them, he threw wide his right arm, hand stretched out wide and expectantly.

Lexaeus and Vexen braced themselves as best they could, knowing precisely what sort of chaos the world would be plunged into once Zexion brought forth his lexicon. 

But nothing appeared in his hand.

Even distanced as they were, they could see the way he paused, rearing back slightly with obvious confusion. Zexion brought his hand back in and stared at his palm contemplatively, as though wondering why he’d done such a thing. He furrowed his brow, a deep crease appearing between his eyes as he wet his lips with a sliver of his tongue. He appeared _genuinely_ perplexed.

Hardly dissuaded, he raised his eyes again, the dark and swirling rifts in the ceiling crackling with the threat of his considerable and ravenous magic. The curve of his mouth changed back into something cloyingly haughty, and he swept a hand forward, harkening a powerful attack they’d both seen hundreds of times in the field.

But again, nothing happened.

The vortexes above gave warning rumbles, snaps of magic cracked through the air like heat lightning, and the air smelled thick with ozone, but nothing rained down upon them.

Zexion stared down at his hands as though he’d never seen them before, smirk melting into a grimace as he realized how powerless he was. In his distraction, the hands gripping him began dragging him back down towards the floor, the howling filling the room growing louder and louder as he neared what was left of the hardwood. 

“…well that’s interesting,” Vexen muttered, remaining a half-step behind Lexaeus, in case there was a sudden surge in their teammate’s ability.

Taking a couple uneven steps in their direction, limbs tense and rigid in defense, Zexion repeated himself. “ _Get out!_ ”

The figure of the father became immediately more apparent to them. In the blink of an eye, he stood whole before them, down to the immaculate creases in the pants of his suit, the imposing gleam of his cufflinks; but still his face warped and swirled before them, only the bright, bright blue of Zexion’s eyes remaining unchanged. It lunged towards them, and Lexaeus reflexively swung the pipe towards its head.

Earlier, when he’d attempted to strike out at the beings, the pipe had passed through them with almost no resistance. But now, clear as the figure before him was, when he struck it, he struck flesh. The shape of Ienzo’s father flickered as it took a few stumbling steps forward, trying to wrest the pipe from Lexaeus’s grip. As it drew nearer to him, the more vague its shape became, the more difficult it became to hit it.

The realization washed over him like an icy wave.

Zexion had his powers, but couldn’t summon his lexicon. He could still use his magic, but it became too taxing too quickly.

The closer they got to him, the more solid their forms became; if they touched him, they grew vibrant and clear in color and shape. They were parasites sapping the energy from him, second by second.

They were taking their strength from him.

The plan was immediate in his mind, but left no room for error. If he was incorrect, there would be repercussions; yet he watched as Zexion’s posture became weaker and weaker, his shoulders heaving with exertion and effort. There was not _time_ to dwell. There was not _time_ to strategize. With a heave, he pushed the being away from him, sending it careening back towards Zexion and the mother.

Clustered as close together as they were, their image became ever crisper, ever clearer, and had it not been for the horrific melting of their faces, they would’ve been all but the perfect replication of the portrait above the mantle.

“Ienzo!”

It was _then_ that Zexion turned, _then_ that he reacted, as though responding to his own name. As though it had been only yesterday, and not more than a decade. He watched with eyes wide and uncomprehending as Lexaeus charged, but even as the pipe was drawn, even as the Hero pivoted back with all his strength, he didn’t flinch.

The old metal connected with flesh. There was a strange, choked noise as the figure of the father flew backwards, careening head over foot from the force of the impact. The mother followed close after, the victim of a brutal backhand swing of the pipe.

Every inch, every foot they were separated from Zexion, they degraded further and further, losing their shape and clarity until they were once again nothing more than mist and static. There was still an impact as they struck the back wall, as though they had actually been made of bone, flesh, and weight. The shock made the monumental portrait above the fireplace shake, tip, and then _fall_ , crashing to the ground as the two ambiguous figures slowly disappeared into the wall they’d hit.

When the portrait fell to the floor, there was a peculiar, cracking sound—almost perplexing in its tininess. A single chip appeared near the bottom of the frame, as if a chunk of the canvas had simply broken off. Quickly, almost too quick to register, the chip became a fracture, became a heavy web of cracks that spanned the image from top to bottom. The _instant_ the shattered veins appeared, the thing in the frame revealed itself to be not a portrait, but a mirror, glinting sadly in the light of the room.

All three of them had turned to watch the misty figures go flying, and all three had followed the path of the frame as it fell.

Around them, the wind quieted. Beneath them, the house ceased trembling. The hands with their translucent skin and many joints slowly sank back down into the blackness beneath the floorboards, benign as wilting flowers. 

Zexion looked back up to the others, expression still tinged with something suspicious, disbelieving. There was something warning in his look, and it was for that reason neither Lexaeus nor Vexen followed as he turned around, slowly approaching the mirror in its gilded frame.

He stood before it, then knelt before it, then slid to sit on the floor before it, his legs crossed like a child’s. Tentatively, he reached a hand out towards the glass, the black leather of his glove coming to rest against it. 

In the reflection, his hand was bare.

There was a deep, tired breath as he stared into the mirror, chest heavy as his reflection stared back with wide, black eyes and a white coat stained tacky with blood. “This isn’t real,” he spoke, voice barely more than a whisper in his throat.

 _This is_ very _real_ , mouthed his reflection.

Vexen and Lexaeus, still wary, exchanged hesitant glances. From their vantage point, it was impossible to see Zexion’s face, even in the mirror’s reflection. What they _could_ see, however, in each and every shard created by the network of breaks and chips, was the rotting face of the doppelganger. Each face was worse than the last, taunting, threatening, tempting them to just take _one step closer_ and see what would come of it. 

Surprisingly, it was Vexen who acted on the challenge first. He had no interest in testing whether the holes in the floor were illusion or reality, and so his path involved a bit of weaving to and fro, but he crossed the room to where Zexion sat in almost no time at all. He looked down to the other, and was not encouraged by what he saw—the blankness was back in his expression, the hollowness they had seen upon first waking him. The reflection was even worse, gore-streaked and manic, yet still matching his movements perfectly.

Zexion tilted his head to one side slowly, the fringe of his hair shifting to reveal both of his eyes as he looked at himself, wincing vaguely at the mutilation the mirror showed him. It was with an unexpectedly tender motion that he slid one of his hands to his face, pressing his fingers gingerly to his skin as though expecting it to slough off. 

Vexen had simply meant to hunch over slightly, but found quickly that even so, he was still much too tall to cast his own reflection. Lexaeus sidled up to them as Vexen threw caution to the wind and knelt, ignoring the horrendous, glaring faces in the periphery of the mirror to lock eyes with Zexion’s warped reflection. “This _isn’t_ real,” he assured him aloud. He had to admit, however, it was difficult to explain why his _own_ reflection was so normal, so untouched by blood and destruction and memory of the labs. 

Next to him, Zexion furrowed his brow, the reflection going a step further and baring its hackles in fury. He stared into the mirror for a long, long moment, before blinking in dawning awareness, looking over to Vexen. He studied his face for a few seconds, and then turned back to the mirror, as though examining the similarities between both images.

Cautiously— _so cautiously_ —he reached his own hand out, setting it on Zexion’s shoulder. He had expected the boy to stiffen or to pull away, but was shocked when he simply continued to sit and stare, wholly unaffected. “This world…there’s something wrong with it. It _lies_.” With his other hand, he jabbed a finger against the mirror, obscuring one of the reflection’s horrible eyes as he pointed. “ _This_ is not real. _This_ is not you.”

Again he blinked slowly, chest rising heavily with a dejected breath. He stared into the mirror for a moment longer before letting his head drop into his hands, covering his face with his gloves. Above him, Vexen and Lexaeus looked to each other again, both still thrumming with uneasy energy and adrenaline. When Zexion looked up into the mirror again, his eyes seemed clearer, more awake. “It _is_ , though.”

“This world—” Lexaeus began, but was sharply cut off as Zexion spoke again.

“This world has nothing to do with it.” Things were beginning to come back to him, now. Waking up in bed, walking to the steps, the feeling of confusion and horror and _elation_ as he recognized the faces and voices that greeted him on the landing. And then, more than that: VII assigning him the mission, Lexaeus insisting on accompanying, Vexen’s shrill voice recounting plans for Oblivion. He looked back into the mirror, “You wouldn’t understand.”

 _This is who you are_ , the reflection mouthed back.

And while he could’ve explained, he wouldn’t. There were some things you kept to yourself, no matter who asked. After all, few things were more personal than divulging exactly what you saw looking back at you when you examined your reflection. “For me…” he said instead, shaking his head slowly, “It’s always like this.”

 _This is what you deserve_ , the curve of his mouth spoke.

“Zexion,” Lexaeus began again, undeterred, “We need to leave. Now. You’re not well.”

The shaking of his head increased, “I can’t. I _can’t_.”

 _This is where you belong_ , he replied through the glass.

“I can’t leave them. I can’t go back, I need to stay.”

 _No one leaves_ , his reflection smiled somberly, shaking its head right along with him, nary a hair out of place. _Everyone is judged for what they’ve done_.

There was a shifting in the mirror from behind them, and almost in tandem Vexen and Lexaeus turned and watched apprehensively as the ambiguous masses of smoke and static wafted up from the floor once more.

“Zexion…”

“Your parents…are dead, boy.” The sharpness of Vexen’s voice shocked Zexion into looking up at him, face uncharacteristically expressive, eyes wide with surprise. “They have been for a _long time_. There’s nothing you can do about that. You can’t help them.”

Lexaeus had bristled at the timbre of his voice, but before he could respond, Zexion had sighed, his voice carried weakly on the exhalation. “But they’re _right there_.”

“They’re not.”

“I’m _home_.”  
  
“You’re not.” Vexen kent his hand on Zexion’s shoulder, kept his gaze on his, as unnerving and uncomfortable as it was. “We _both_ know that you know that.”

Zexion simply stared at him, mouth open in a slight ‘o’ of contemplation. He craned his head up to Lexaeus as though hoping he would find some trace of disagreement there. But there was none. So he looked to the mirror one last time before slowly setting his hands on his knees, beginning to ease himself to his feet.

 _You won’t get far_ , his reflection mouthed, remaining firmly in place. It looked up at him as he stood, lips turned upwards in mockery. _No one escapes what they’ve done_.

He furrowed his brow as he met his own gaze, pursing his lips faintly before turning his back to it. There was a tightening of his throat, a drying of his tongue as he came face to face with his parents once more, standing just at the edge of the room. 

He approached them slowly, pausing only for a moment to look back at the cloaked figures behind him. Wetting his lip with a sliver of his tongue, face wrought with heavy creases of contemplation and resignation, he seemed to grapple with himself. When he next moved, it was to take another step towards the outstretched arms of his parents; he could feel the other two bristle just behind him.

“I miss you,” he said, voice low and gravelly with something he couldn’t quite place. His mother reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand, and despite the chill of her skin, he found himself leaning into the touch. He covered her hand with his, shaking his head slowly as he looked from her to his father, and back again. “I miss you so, _so much_ …” There was a hitching in his throat as his adam’s apple worked furiously against the heaviness threatening to crush his voice into wisps. There was a moment of doubt—a horrid, _weighty_ moment—because Nobodies didn’t have hearts, Nobodies couldn’t feel, Nobodies couldn’t _cry_ , but already his vision was doubling and trebling against the way his eyes were welling up.

And his parents were looking at him with such _warmth_ and _love_ , and he thought his chest had never felt so full. Their faces, their arms, were where he _belonged_ , where he was _supposed to be_. He couldn’t hide the childish quiver of his lip, nor the sharp shudder of his chest when he spoke. “But you’re not _real_.” The way their expressions melted before him was enough to send fanged barbs through his ribs, slicing him open from the inside out. Love became confusion became indignation became a familiar _rage_ , each wending its way around his throat and the hollowness of his chest. Fingers closing around his mother’s hand, he slowly pulled it from off of his face, trying and failing to combat the jut of his lower lip as he looked into her eyes. “You’re not real,” he repeated, shoulders low with the heavy mantle of realization.

He took a step back, releasing the chilly hand in his grasp as he simply _watched_ them, still shaking his head with tired disbelief. “You never _were_.”

The room around them intensified, not unlike the final overly bright surge of a dying light bulb. Around them, lines grew too sharp, too saturated, the polished mahogany paneling thrumming with heavy reds, the lights above glaring so golden it became almost impossible to see.

There was a terrible noise, then—a shrieking, ear-piercing _wail_. The world grew brighter and brighter until even with eyes screwed shut, everything was blindingly, _painfully_ white.

And then, just like that, it was over.

When they opened their eyes, the mansion was pitch-dark. They stood in front of the ragged hole that had once been a fireplace, atop the old, creaking floorboards. The walls were rotting through, the windows were boarded, the air smelled of mold and dust.

For a long while, the three stood there, ears ringing agonizingly with the sudden absence of sound. They seemed to gather themselves slowly, each in their own time, blinking away the bright flashes that had left strange tattoos on their retinas.

Vexen, unsurprisingly, was the first to speak. “Just like that?” he asked, looking around the dark, open area. “That was…terribly anticlimactic.” He turned to Lexaeus, and then to Zexion, looking for some sign of agreement.

“What more did you want?” Zexion’s expression had grown jarringly unreadable once more. Had it not been for the slouch of his shoulders or the slight bend to his knees, he might’ve seemed entirely unmoved. “An eruption of flames? Pools of blood? Some titanic beast to come crashing down upon us?” He drew in a deep breath, his entire body moving with the effort. When he released it, it became startlingly obvious how very _small_ he was, compared to the two of them. “Sometimes things…just end. Sometimes there’s no closure. That’s just the way the universe works.” Without another word, without focusing his gaze, he turned away from them, walking out into the hall and towards the main doors.

Lexaeus was on his heels immediately, wasting no time in matching his stride. “You’re not well,” he said lowly, “You can’t be. Not after all of that.”

Vexen followed soon after, back in the lurch of being the odd one out, in the group. He thought he heard Zexion scoff, but it was so hard to tell, and wondered how much of the response was lost on him—so much of Zexion and Lexaeus’s communication was maddeningly nonverbal. “Just like that?” he repeated, calling after them. “Everything we’ve seen, and everything that _just happened_ , and you’re just going to walk away as though—”

“ _Yes_.” Zexion’s answer was firm as he laid his hands against the doors, resting there for a moment. He didn’t look at them, just continued staring straight into the doors. “Yes,” he said again, “I’m just going to walk away. I’m just going to walk away, _Vexen_ , because I just—” His voice cut off jaggedly as his throat tightened. He hoped he had kept most of the wavering out of his tone, but found he didn’t quite have the cognitive resources enough to care. Pursing his lips tightly, he collected himself. “I am tired, I am _confused_ , and to be quite frank with you, I just experienced losing my family for a _second time_ , so if it’s all right with you, yes. Yes, I will be walking away, and no, I will not be stopping until I find myself back in the Castle.” Then he _did_ turn, eyebrows raised condescendingly, “Is that fair enough?”

Neither knew what to say. Neither said anything.

With another low sound that might’ve been a scoff, Zexion threw his weight into the doors, only barely managing to open them. Lexaeus reached forward and held one open for him, and he wordlessly slipped between them. Pushing through, he took a step onto the snowy walkway, then another…and then there was a faint, almost imperceptible change in his posturing. Moving with twice the speed anyone of his stature should’ve been capable of, Lexaeus managed to grab him by the back of his cloak before his knees buckled entirely.

“You need to rest,” Lexaeus said, already shifting the heft of the pipe against his other arm to compensate for Zexion’s weight.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he snapped back, though his eyes were half-lidded and his shoulders slouched. “I just need to—” His head lolled down onto his chest before he could finish the thought, and if it hadn’t been for Lexaeus’s grip, he would’ve collapsed entirely.

Without looking from Zexion, Lexaeus reached out, offering the pipe over to Vexen. Though the combined weight of it and Zexion would’ve been all but negligible to him, there was no denying he wouldn’t have been able to carry the Schemer _and_ wield it simultaneously, were they attacked. “We need to find somewhere safe,” he said over his shoulder, “He’s not getting very far like this.”

Wordlessly, the Academic took the weapon from him, lips pursing faintly as he was struck again with the unpleasant sensation of being the odd one out—even after all they’d been through in the world, after everything they’d overcome, after everything they’d been _put through,_ he was reminded that Lexaeus’s allegiances (and _concerns_ ) were with Zexion, and Zexion alone. “I’ll follow you, then,” he said simply, looking to the manor one last time.

It wasn’t the first time he’d watched the child dragged from out of it; he hoped it would be the last. He had no interest in reuniting with the three figures standing silhouetted in the window. As they began to walk, Vexen convinced himself that he couldn’t feel their hollow, non-existent eyes boring holes into them.


	9. Retribution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Body horror, gore, the author thinking she's slick with MeTaPhOrS.

The inn had not been Vexen’s first choice. After everything they had seen in the town, the horrors they had been forced to endure, he had wanted nothing more than to press on towards whatever escape they could find. But Lexaeus had been of a different mindset—as was so often the case when Zexion was involved. They had barely made it across the icy intersection of the main street before he’d demanded that they stop and rest.

They’d taken one of the larger rooms on the second floor, wary of the things that could reach them by air, but more so of those that might’ve come wandering around the door, had they remained at ground level.

Even so, Vexen thought as he turned down the dusty hallway, things had been… _quieter_. There had been a few times where, nearing the entrance to the floor, he thought he’d heard something clanking about the corrugated metal staircase outside, but those instances had been few and far between. The only constant was the howling of the wind outside, the dull creaks of the ancient building settling into its bones. It was almost as though collecting Zexion had served as some sort of shield against the horrid things.

But that made little sense. The entire damnable place, the creatures shuffling and prowling out of their line of sight, they were all creations of the child’s mind. Horrific manifestations of subconscious fears and angers, swirling and coalescing into solid forms. If anything, he would’ve thought things would be _worse_ , now that the Schemer was back among their ranks.

He didn’t want to think on Zexion, now. That was why he had left the room in the first place.

He’d been wandering around the second floor for what seemed like hours, taking little comfort in the familiar routine of recon. At first he had been more than slightly apprehensive, disappearing off on his own again. But for once, there had been no lingering feeling of discomfort or unease, no sense that the building around them was somehow thrumming with its own source of life. Perhaps the confrontation at the mansion had exorcised something from the place, cauterizing something rotting and infectious in the core of the world.

Strangely enough, there were no interior stairwells to the first floor of the building, and loath as he was to step foot outside the projected safety of the inn’s walls, Vexen found himself restricted to pacing the small strip of the second floor’s hall. Unlike the apartments and the hospital, the doors all swung open freely, their locks old and weakened with wear. And while there had been nothing of particular importance or interest in any of the rooms he’d poked about, there was something calming about the sense of normality. They had been _sent_ to this world to gather intelligence after all…so finally being able to quietly look about, to be able to take careful note of each irregularity, it was its own sort of panacea.

The rooms were all perfectly rundown, the smell of old wood and mold heavy in the air each time a new door was opened. The bedclothes had yellowed with time, as had the wallpaper, giving each little living space an almost nostalgic aura of sepia tone. Dead insects piled up in sad mountains between the window screens and panes, cobwebs obscuring the rooms’ corners in netted strands. No one had been here in some time, he thought; had it not been for the divots in the mattresses, he might’ve thought no one had _ever_ stayed in those rooms, or breathed the stale air, or walked across the rickety spots in the flooring. The place felt untouched. 

Somehow, though the thought may have made him uncomfortable once, he felt it now to be a great relief.

He had done his best to avoid windows since the apartments, so terribly worried of what he might see if he spied outside, but he felt himself gravitated to the ragged drapes just then. Pushing them aside with two fingers, he pursed his lips as he craned his head to see through the foggy glass. The snow that beat silently against the pane was bright and white as ever, but the sky beyond was an inky black, concealing all but the faintest outlines of the buildings around them. Perhaps more time had passed than he had thought.

Vexen let the curtains drop back into place, shaking the powdery dust from his gloves as he turned to leave the room. He closed the door behind him softly, as though worried of ruining the sense of silence, of calm, that seemed to envelop the area.

As he made his way down the hall, a gust of wind whistled by from the other side of the wall, warning of the weather they would soon have to face. It was strange, really, how different he felt about the cold when it was no longer at his beck and call. _Helpless_ , Lexaeus had said. The word he’d used when asked how the world had made him feel was _helpless_. Vexen was understanding the sentiment more and more with each passing minute they remained. When the cold and ice and frost were _his_ to command, there was nothing more reassuring than a frigid blast of air. But knowing that they wouldn’t bend to his will, knowing that the element was now its own beast…it was less than ideal.

When he neared the room where they’d set up camp, he heard nothing. Not that he had expected any differently. Zexion had been in worse condition than he’d ever seen him by the time they’d made it to the top of the staircase. Once he’d set off to explore the inn on his own, the Schemer had been little more than conscious. Lexaeus had, of course, remained to stand guard over him.

But Vexen knew full well that even if Zexion had awakened by then, he and Lexaeus could’ve been having the most animated of conversations without him being any the wiser. When together, the two spoke in low, hushed tones, as though they were the keepers of some sacred secret no one else could be privy to. It was only when there were others—only when _he_ joined them—did Zexion raise his voice and barb his tongue. He wasn’t surprised, then, when he opened the door to the exchange of quiet words.

“You were so… _convinced_.”

“I was.” It was rare to hear concession in Zexion’s voice. Vexen couldn’t help but wonder if he’d _ever_ heard it, in fact. “But I should’ve known. It was so safe there, so warm. Comforting, I suppose would be the word.” He had a hand on Lexaeus’s arm, and as Vexen watched, the deep gashes beneath the shreds of his cloak’s sleeve closed up. Zexion was strong enough for healing magic, it seemed. “They were nothing like my parents. I should’ve realized.”

“They were draining the life from out of you,” Vexen said abruptly, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the room. He was glad when Lexaeus pulled his arm away, not liking how _intimate_ their exchanges were in his absence. It always served as a reminder that they were a duo— _partners_ —and he was just the hanger-on. “They would’ve reduced you to a useless _shell_ if we hadn’t come along to rescue you.” 

Zexion’s eyes snapped to him then, much in the same way the double’s had, and Vexen poorly restrained the shiver that crept up his spine. The Schemer appeared to consider him for a moment, expression unreadable. His chest deflated with a breath and he too looked away, “I suppose that’s true. Perhaps they were more like my parents than I initially gave them credit for.”

Lexaeus shot Vexen a glance that was dour, but otherwise impossible to interpret.

“I see you’re up and about,” he said with a sniff, folding his arms across his chest almost expectantly.

“Up, yes. For the moment. But I’m not terribly certain of the _about_.”

“Your powers seem to still be in working order.”

There was a minute, almost imperceptible tilt to Zexion’s head at the insinuation. When he met Vexen’s gaze again, it became abundantly clear how tired he still was. His pallor had hardly improved, and there was an unfamiliar glassiness to his eyes. “Some,” he admitted. “Not all. Nothing with any force behind it.”

Vexen clucked his tongue, “How very convenient that you’re able to pick and choose what you are and aren’t capable of. I seem to remember _fearing for my life_ , back in the mansion—”

“Vexen,” Lexaeus warned. 

He went silent, but only reluctantly so. Dealing with the horrendous doppelganger and its tricks had been horrible, but already he found himself missing the respite of alliance. It was difficult, if not _impossible_ , to hold Zexion accountable for much of anything when he had Lexaeus looming behind him. Bitterly, he tightened the line of his lips and huffed a breath through his nose.

Ever the observer, Zexion’s gaze remained intently on Vexen’s face for a long moment. He may have still been tired, but the others could all but hear the cogs of his head turning, turning, turning, smoothly as ever. With a slow, heavy blink, he turned back to examine the walls of the room. “I can’t summon my lexicon.”

“None of us can summon _anything_.”

“I’ve been brought up to date on what I missed.”

“ _Of course_ you have.” Though the impulse was strong, he resisted shooting another sneer in the pair’s direction. “Then I’m sure, by now, you’ve been briefed on the _nature_ of what we’ve been experiencing? And how very, very strongly it hinges on _your_ mind?”

The corners of Zexion’s mouth tightened incrementally. “It’s been brought to my attention.”

In a motion driven more by habit than intent, Vexen leaned down to close the gap between his and Zexion’s eye levels. “Then you understand why I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” he spoke slowly, each syllable wrought with deliberate abruptness.

Time seemed to stretch for eons between the two of them, both silent, watching the other carefully for any trace sign of expression or weakness or deceit. In the air, there was the faintest smell of ozone, and something warningly prickled at the fine hairs on napes, but no sleight ever came.

Eyes narrowing in thought, Vexen straightened himself back up. “You _are_ tired,” he acknowledged, brushing the wrinkles from his cloak. Whatever had happened back in the mansion, whatever power he’d had then, it must’ve been another cruel act on the part of the world. _Had_ Zexion been in full control of his faculties, he would’ve made it known. He had always been overly caught up in the formality of politeness, but it was a formality that seemed to fall by the wayside when it came to Vexen.

Lexaeus couldn’t help but wonder if it was less to do with _manners_ , how Zexion was comporting himself, and more about his and Vexen’s exchange in the manor. The tension between the two of them had always been strained— _strange_. No one knew better than he, how impossible it was to properly define a relationship with Zexion; when it came to Vexen, the lines between mentor and advisor, adversary and colleague, foe and father all seemed to blur. But for the time being, the air of disdain seemed to lift ever so slightly.

“I am,” Zexion agreed, if not belatedly. He swallowed hard, mouth dry, and let himself fall back onto the mattress in an uncharacteristically undignified slump. “And much as I hate to admit it, there’s no use in my pretending it’s a purely physical exhaustion.” His hair obscured the better part of his face, but there was still a bunching to his lips that read as particularly displeased. “I feel as though I’ve been awake for _weeks_. My thoughts are…” he gestured vaguely with one hand, fingers pulsing as though he held a beating heart in his palm. “ _Chaotic_. Disorganized.” Zexion shook his head before closing his eyes entirely, “I’m having difficulty making sense of them.”

“You’re in good company.” Lexaeus stood from the bed as he broke his silence. “Now that we’re all together, we should focus on finding our RTC point.”

A warm flood of relief crept through Vexen at the words, and he sighed, “ _Yes_ we should.”

“Do we have theories on its location?”

“The historical society.”

There was a pause on Zexion’s end as he chewed his words, processing the chain of events Lexaeus had been briefing him on. But he was in no condition to argue, much less provide his own guesses, so he simply turned onto his side and closed his eyes once more. “The historical society it is, then.” With a heavy heave of breath, he pushed himself up on his elbows, easing back up from the mattress.

Lexaeus took him by the arm, helping him right himself. “You should rest.”  
  
Zexion shook his head. “We should go.” He took a moment to straighten up, appearing immediately as capable and cunning as usual. It was obvious in the minutiae, though, that he was still so, _so_ tired. Instead of dwelling on it, he flipped the hood of his cloak up in one curt motion, obscuring his face in shadow. “You two seem to know the way. I’ll follow.” 

“ _For once_ ,” Vexen mumbled, surprised to find that there was no bitterness in his tone, nor any sort of reproach. The air around them has seemed to shift somehow since they’d reunited, and in a way, made it difficult to maintain any modicum of contempt.

They filed out of the inn in much the same way they’d arrived, tentatively testing the metal steps for ice before setting their full weight upon them. The world around them had grown so dark—the glaring light of the sun long since been extinguished—and as Vexen had suspected upon glancing out the window, the storm had picked up considerably during their respite. They drew and cinched their hoods, they turned against the wind, the fabric of their cloaks flapped brutally around them, doing very little to shield from the freeze.

There was a long, cold stretch of time where they tried to regain their bearings, tried to remember which way the inn had been facing. But the snow seemed to swirl from all angles, thick and heavy enough to nearly veil them from one another. Though they stood separated by barely an arm’s length, they were little more to each other than dark, vague silhouettes through the white. Zexion opened his mouth to comment, and found that the piercing howl of the storm had muted them, as well. No matter how hard he tried, it was as though the air had stolen his voice, tearing it from his throat before it could be heard.

Clearly, he was not the only affected. Lexaeus gestured widely with an arm, signaling the way they were meant to go. Vexen remembered the double had told them to go northwest; every direction seemed identical to Zexion. They followed him silently, three cloaked specters in the night. 

As they walked, their surroundings seemed to lurch, seemed to _shift_ , ever so slightly. It wasn’t enough to further disorient, but the horrific wind turned to beat against them relentlessly, sending large flurries of snow and tiny shards of ice into their faces despite the flimsy protection of their hoods. It became hard to breathe, impossible to see, and there was even a moment—terrifying in its humiliation—where Zexion, as the slightest of their number, found himself temporarily unable to advance against the gale’s push. With the slick of black ice underneath his boots, he found the street stretching mockingly before him as he slid back into his old footprints, already beginning to fill with snow.

It was a full minute, perhaps even two, before the others realized how their ranks had fallen out of line. Zexion had already begun to regain his ground, sticking to the areas of the street covered still with snow to maintain some traction. He was grateful for the privacy of his hood, more so for the burning cold, masking the red-hot embarrassment creeping up his neck and down the tips of his ears. He ignored the hand offered to him, knowing without looking up from the ground that it was Lexaeus’s. The statement was obvious: _I am fine_.

Even though they couldn’t hear over the screaming storm battering them back, Zexion spoke it to himself like some tired child’s bedtime prayer. “ _I am fine. I am fine. I am fine_.” He knew full well he was not. Knew he _would not be_.

Had they been able to communicate, Lexaeus and Vexen would’ve commented how strange it was, how very strange indeed—because when it had been the two of them wandering the streets, the world had made their paths obvious, had set obstacles _only_ to keep them from going where they were not meant to be. For the town to suddenly be fighting them back so brutally, well…perhaps they _weren’t_ going the right way.

But tired as he was, Zexion knew implicitly that they were growing closer to their escape. It wasn’t that the town was battling _them_. It was battling _him_. He was meant full well to still be in that manor, rotting away into the seams of the overstuffed armchair. The world had gotten a taste, but it was still so very, very ravenous. It was a feeling that resonated deeply within him, deeper still than the numbing cold. _He_ was a creature of propriety, of fairness, of _retribution_. The town was no different. It was a sentiment he could understand.

Would _he_ have allowed _his_ prey to escape without a struggle?

 _Never_.

The heavy smell of char flooded him then, clogging his sinuses as his eyes flooded with water that immediately threatened to frost over. He was only afforded a split-second to puzzle over the sudden, overwhelming stench before a monstrous face appeared in his periphery. A massive weight crashed into his left side, sending him slipping, then falling; the icy concrete met the right side of his face with force enough to send his ear ringing, the rest of his body frozen stock-still from the shock of the impact.

He looked up into the creature’s face, feeling a heavy roiling in his stomach as the thing’s eyes flashed brightly above a scarred muzzle, hackles raised in a silent snarl. The snowy world seemed to slow as the strange canine lunged, jagged teeth dripping foaming spittle. Zexion noted painstakingly the weight of its front paws of his ribs, the heavy scarring above its eyes, the heat coming off of it in waves so unbearable the very storm appeared not to touch it. His throat had begun to sweat under his cloak as the thing’s jaw neared it, the reek of burnt carrion heavy in his head.

And then, surprising even himself, he reached up. Still achingly slow, as though trapped in a nightmare where the air was molasses-thick, he brought the heel of his hand up against the thing’s lower jaw, cracking its teeth together with a force that would doubtlessly bruise his palm. 

The creature tumbled and Zexion scrambled, the wind swallowing up the noise of agony he made as he rolled onto the shoulder he’d overextended in the strike, pushing himself to his knees, then his feet, planting himself firmly in the snow. The driving snow had already formed a heavy curtain between them, but the sheer _heat_ of the thing made its silhouette stand out achingly as it sunk down on its haunches, preparing for another strike. Through the snow there was no sign of Lexaeus, no sign of Vexen. Zexion was so _tired_ , so _drained_ , but the flesh memory of the horrific teeth at his throat sent anxious energy into his legs, filled his brain with white noise and static.

It lunged again, all sinew and teeth, and without allowing himself time enough to contemplate the action, Zexion kicked. There was a horribly gelatinous sensation as his boot connected with the thing’s underbelly, and he found himself fighting his gorge against the sudden rising of bile. With a yelp, it fell back to the ground—hardly defeated, but very deterred. Hunched in on itself, it watched Zexion with wide, nocturnally shining eyes, its hackles raised. The snow evaporated around it as it rose its mangled muzzle to the sky and opened wide its jaw in what could’ve only been a muted howl.

As though drawn by the sound, impossible as it was, the others began to reappear, little more than darkened shapes in the whiteout. He didn’t even both to open his mouth to try and warn them. It was no use. The creature’s gaze was torn from him, and it bounded off in the direction of one of the shadowy figures in the distance.

He watched as the silhouette fell under the beast’s weight, but it was nigh impossible to make much else out through the snow. The second, close enough it seemed to have a better view, rushed to the scene of the attack; time continued to drag by, seconds feeling like minutes, like hours, like days. Unable to do much else, Zexion looked about, eyes slit against the onslaught of sleet and snow. There had to be some sort of cover nearby, somewhere they could regroup…

Through the veil of white, he thought he could make out a shape to his left. A storefront, maybe? If it had four walls and a roof, it didn’t much matter—he turned back toward the flailing figures of his teammates and gestured towards the building with wide, sweeping motions of his arms. At first, there was no sign that he’d been noticed. He continued to wave, the muscles of his arms burning with exhaustion and numbed by the cold, in turn.

Finally— _finally_ —one of the others returned the wave, and he allowed his arms to fall back to his sides. He retreated towards the vague shape behind him, relief beginning to bloom as the outline of a door and large neon sign took shape. There was no cover to block the snow as he tried the door’s handle, and he could feel the brutal wind sucking the breath from him as he stood, pushing and pulling futilely.

Hardly a minute later, Lexaeus’s gargantuan frame had appeared next to him, the door flying inwards on its hinges after one massive heave. Zexion was ushered in none-too-gently, followed closely by the other two.

The silence of the building was a deafening roar compared to the screaming storm outside its walls, and the juxtaposition sent their heads spinning in unison. Their harsh, panting breaths filled the room, accompanied by the quiet pitter-patter of the puddles growing below them as the snow packed to their cloaks began to melt.

“ _What was that?”_ Zexion managed to gasp as they crossed the threshold into the building. The very moment the comparative warmth of the shelter struck him, his legs went weak, and he felt them go out; he leaned against a wall as best he could to keep from crumpling, and instead slid to the ground. His body still thrummed with cold, electric panic, extremities tingling painfully. The building smelled overwhelmingly of old alcohol and wood polish, adding to the intensity of his dizziness. He felt as though he might simply slide away if he couldn’t find something to hold onto. 

Lexaeus shook his head upon slamming the door behind them, yanking what appeared to be a large metal shelf to barricade them in. “They’re everywhere. Usually in pairs. One got away earlier after I destroyed the second—it’s possible it had been tracking us.”

“Oh I’d say it’s _possible!_ ” Vexen had all but thrown himself into the room, and had wound up on the floor, much like Zexion. His right hand cradled his left arm, but he still hadn’t gathered himself enough to examine the damage. Everything felt raw, torn apart. There was no way he would look past the tattered shreds of his sleeve and see the beast had only left a scratch. “And _you_ ,” he whirled as best he could—really very little more than a curt turning of his head—toward Zexion, face contorted in a furious scowl. “Sicking the thing on _me?!_ ”

“It wasn’t _intentional_ ,” Zexion began, but Vexen would have no part of it.

“Do you even _comprehend_ the extend of what we’ve had to endure because of _you?!_ Do you understand the injuries, the _damage_ we’ve been the brunt of, all because _you_ can’t handle yourself? Because we have to keep running after you, and because _you won’t use your powers!_ You can make this all stop! We don’t have to keep running, we don’t have to continue subjecting ourselves to this…this… _lunacy!_ If you just—”

“What _precisely_ gave you that idea?” Both of his eyes were open, but heavily lidded. Even cached away in the shadows as he was, his weakness was clear to see in his sprawl. “Do I really look capable of doing much of _anything_ , at this particular moment in time?”

There was a loud squelching of wet boots on the wooden floor as Vexen fought to right himself. “ _You. Attacked. Us._ Back in the mansion! You had more than enough power to _launch us across the room!_ ” He managed to sit himself up, still gripping at his wounded arm, torn flesh apparent through the flapping hole in his sleeve.

“I’ve already told you,” Zexion began, voice clipped and measured in a way that made it apparent at once that something horrible was brewing beneath the surface. “I don’t know _how_ I was able to do that. I hardly remember it happening at all—I wasn’t wholly conscious, you _know_ that—”

“I know you’re _lying_ ,” Vexen snapped. He was all but frothing at the mouth, his final straw having been broken long ago. “I don’t know _why_ , but you _are_. You’re so caught up in playing the victim—”

“ _Vexen_.” Lexaeus’s reprimand was less a crack of thunder, as he had intended, and more the warning of a tired caretaker. He had taken to leaning against a discarded table, posture slouched as snow melted from his drawn hood in slushy clumps. “ _Drop it_.”

“ _No!_ ” He forced himself to his feet, his muscles spasming with furious energy. “I most certainly _will not!_ I outrank you— _both of you—_ and I won’t continue to be admonished like some underling!” His chest heaved with the weight of his frustration as he turned to Lexaeus. “ _You_ especially, V. If _anyone_ here should be trusted to give orders, it _shouldn’t_ be you— _you’re_ the reason that damned… _thing_ was able to lead us along as long as it did! It’s always about VI, isn’t it? Always. _He’s_ always to be trusted, _he’s_ always to be believed, _he’s_ always to be obeyed—well that’s worked out _splendidly_ for us thus far, hasn’t it?!” Around him, the other two had fallen silent, but the adrenaline of the fight outside, combined with the fury of the whole situation, proved to be too potent a mixture for him to ignore. “Are you even _capable_ of thinking for yourself anymore?!”

And it was the strangest thing—though he couldn’t see Lexaeus’s face through the shadow of his hood, Vexen knew implicitly that he had averted his eyes. It had been a low blow, but something about it had felt good. _Cathartic_.

When he turned back to Zexion, he was surprised to see that he too had managed to pull himself up from off of the floor. Even at his full height, the Schemer was nowhere near his eye level, and the mere act of _looking down on him_ seemed to only inflate the growing sense of justified rage throbbing within him. “ _This_ is all your doing. This is all _your fault_. This whole damned world, this _nightmare_. It’s all the product of your sick little head. And you drag us here, and you expect us to subject ourselves to the brunt of the damage, because _you_ can’t be troubled to handle it on your own.”

“ _You_. Followed. _Me._ ” Zexion managed out through grit teeth, though whether the tightening of his jaw was due to pain or his own burgeoning anger was unclear. “This should’ve been _my_ mission. I didn’t _ask_ you to follow along— _“_

“No, we’re just _expected to_.” He rounded on him, anticipating a shift in the air at any moment, some sign of offensive magic flaring up from the other’s fingers. When it didn’t come, it made him somehow angrier. “We’re _expected_ to subject ourselves to this torture. _For you_. To save _you_. To protect _you_. We’re just slaves to your beck and call, aren’t we? Let’s all pity VI. He’s the only one with any _trace_ of power in this world, while we’re left utterly _defenseless_ , terrified out of our wits, made to feel as though we’re losing our minds, with absolutely _no_ idea if we’ll even _survive long enough to make it back_ , but—”

“And how does _that_ feel?” It was then that Zexion seemed to snap back to life, showing the first hint of… _anything_ since they’d reunited. Though the difference in their heights was considerable, Zexion’s glare managed to be impossibly withering as he looked up at Vexen. “How does it _feel_ to be on the other side for once?”

It was as if he’d been slapped across the mouth. The familiarity of the words jarred him into surprised silence, mouth still open in an o of confused indignation. Vexen didn’t even need to close his eyes to imagine the delicate, flowery script that had been written on the map left folded on the desk in the hospital. “What?” he managed to eke out, even as Zexion’s words echoed in his mind. 

“It’s not _enjoyable_ , is it? It isn’t _pleasant_ , being defenseless, having no grip on reality. Almost _torturous_.” And oh, this was a side of Zexion they hadn’t yet had much occasion to see—had they been able to sit and confer, neither Vexen nor Lexaeus would’ve been able to recall the last time they’d seen him so incensed. It had very likely been long before he lost his heart, and even then…it was questionable. There was some sort of fire behind his eyes, a flushing to the pits of his cheeks, at once making him look so much younger and so much older than he was. Something in the tension of his shoulders harkened to a predator, readying its pounce.

“You never— _never_ —had to struggle for any of it, did you?” Eyes narrowed, stare fixed, Zexion suddenly felt every inch as dangerous as the double had. “Of course not. Why would anyone ever doubt _you_? The senior-most scientist, the expert, Ansem’s _advisor_.” His words were heavy and fast as he spat them out like ammunition, each syllable reporting sharply as it struck. “Your word was _law_.”

Vexen drew himself to his full height, indignant. “If you’re insinuating I had it _easy_ in the Gardens, _boy_ , you’re mistaken. _No one_ respected—”

“I’m not talking about _respect!_ I’m not talking about _reverence!_ You’re the only one of us who _ever_ cared about those things!” His hands were fists at his sides, his shoulders squared and steeled. “I’m talking about _belief!_ I’m talking about _trust!_ I’m talking about the fact that no one ever _questioned you when you said something!_ ” Small patches of red had begun to creep into the pits of his cheeks, much more likely due to the heat of the argument than anything else, but the illusion of emotion was still potent. “No one ever took _anything_ I said seriously. I was too _young_ , I was too _small_ —”

“You never spoke! You never said _anything_ —”

“ _Because no one ever listened!_ ” The sound of Zexion’s voice echoed throughout the dark building, not nearly strong enough to dislodge any dust, but alien enough to silence Vexen immediately. “No one ever listened. It didn’t matter what I did. It didn’t matter how often I proved myself. It didn’t matter how _hard_ I _tried._ So I stopped trying.” He didn’t move, but all the same, Vexen fought the urge to step back; it was almost as if his _presence_ had begun advancing on him. “I have been as intelligent, if not _more so_ , than you since I was brought into the Castle.”

The silence that fell between them spoke volumes and volumes. It was a sore spot—another one. The novelty of a prodigy had been exciting up until the moment he’d been surpassed. _That_ had been unanticipated.

“I was…” Zexion stopped for an instant, chewed the word, and then corrected himself. “I _am_ brilliant. But I’m _young._ ” He paused again, eyes narrowing further. His disgust was palpable. “I’m _small_. And for some reason, those are the _two_ traits that lend themselves to the _most_ disbelief.” His posture, usually so effortlessly regal, was reduced to nothing but harsh angles, muscles coiled viper-like with tension. “I was just a _child_. A tiny child with a looming imagination and a sad, sad past. Everything I said was some sort of trauma-induced exaggeration, wasn’t it? How _ridiculous_ , to think I could make things happen with my mind. How _ridiculous_ , to think we were all changing. _How ridiculous_ …to think something _else_ was going on in the Castle.” There was no humor in his tone.

He had taken to pacing, only slightly. It was bizarre, almost _surreal_ , to watch him behave in a manner so chillingly similar to Vexen. “Did you ever think—even _once_ —that there was some _reason_ I ran away so often? Maybe there was a _reason_ I stopped talking? Didn’t you wonder _why_ I _leapt_ at the opportunity to join up with Xehanort?” His brow furrowed, his throat worked furiously. “You didn’t. I know. So allow me to give you some small, brief insight into what was happening _here_ ,” he gestured wildly at his own face, movements no longer calculated or clipped, but almost frantic. “Everything I _ever_ said…was written off as exaggeration, confabulation, or bald-faced lie. I was small, I was sickly, I wasn’t _right_.

“How was I supposed to defend myself against your judgment? Or _Ansem’s_? How I was I supposed to defend myself against _anyone?!_ Or _anything?!_ ”

Vexen swallowed hard, the lining of his throat feeling like icy sandpaper. “Be that as it may.” He found he had no argument. “We always made sure you were protected. You were always _fine_.”

Almost imperceptibly, Zexion cocked his head to the side. The fringe of hair fell away for an instant, revealing both of his eyes, trained unflinchingly on Vexen’s. “ _Was_ I?”

The wave of doubt was suffocating. Yet, it was _nothing_ compared to the horrible, surging crest of realization. _No_ , Vexen thought to himself. _No. Apparently you were not._ All at once it was so apparent, so obvious, he wondered how he had failed to notice it for all those years. Had he simply chosen not to acknowledge it? Or had it truly, _sincerely_ never occurred to him until that very moment?

Ienzo had _not_ been fine. Ienzo had _never_ been fine.

Zexion rounded on him, charging the air around them with the acrid taste of ozone. “I know what it feels like to think you’re losing your mind. And I know what it feels like to _know_ there’s _nothing_ you can do to protect yourself. So _please_ rest assured—you don’t need to remind me that this world is a product of my mind. I’m already _perfectly_ aware of that. Maybe now _you_ are, too.” And with that, he set a hand on Vexen’s arm. The contact lasted only a matter of seconds before he pulled away with a dismissive flourish, stalking off towards some shadowed back room, but the warm tingle of healing magic lingered for some time after that.

Vexen looked down at the ruined sleeve of his cloak, pulling his lips tight against his teeth when the skin of his arm revealed itself to be perfectly intact once more. The agony had faded as well, replaced with a hollowness he hadn’t quite anticipated. His burst of fury had left him feeling lighter, as though a great malignant mass had been excised from his chest; the revelation of Ienzo’s—Zexion’s?—fear and helplessness had turned that relief into emptiness.

It was so, _so_ easy to forget Zexion had been a child, once. It was still easier to forget that the child in question had been a _human being_.

The silence Zexion left in his wake was deathly. After several minutes of awkward shuffling, Vexen managed to find a stool to rest on, taking care to avoid coming into contact with the ancient rust encasing the better part of it. Lexaeus pushed himself up from his lean with grunt that spoke volumes of the effort it had taken, following slowly after Zexion. 

And then Vexen was alone again, much as he had been throughout the greater part of the mission; alone with his thoughts and alone with his memories, each more discomforting than the last. If nothing else, the growing rift between the two of them made more sense—there had always been resentment there, but he hadn’t realized its extent. So much of Zexion’s behavior was tempered by propriety…all the while, _that_ had been lurking somewhere deep down, putrefying like some abscessed wound.

If it was true, if the world wasn’t _just_ warping Ienzo’s _memories_ and putting them on display, if it was infecting them with what he’d _felt_ …

Again, it made sense. Horrible, terrible sense. 

He tried to push the thought from his head, but couldn’t help coming back to it in the silence. The two of them had almost been a family, once. _Almost_. And still, he’d had no idea of what had been going through the child’s mind, what he’d been battling. Things were different now in more ways that he could name, but…he couldn’t help but wonder whether things might’ve been different, had he known.

Or had he _asked_.

The revelation resonated unpleasantly behind his eyes. Aeleus had, he wagered—and if not Aeleus, Lexaeus had most certainly. The grievances Zexion had aired had vaguely hinted at the Guard in passing, but were _nothing_ compared to what he’d unloaded on him. Doubtlessly the two had already had similar discussions, though he doubted highly that _those_ had been quite as tempestuous. He could recall how often Aeleus had pulled Ienzo aside during those last few days in the labs, he suspected fully that even as they were now, the frequency of those asides had not lessened. Ever since waking up in the darkness, the two had been nigh inseparable. He found he couldn’t quite remember a time where he had seen one without the other. Perhaps it was easier to speak of emotional experiences without a heart, perhaps one could be more logical, more pragmatic. Perhaps it made it all the _harder_ to face.

He wasn’t sure that he would get an answer to that particular hypothetical.

Some time passed before the floor trembled beneath him with footsteps once more. When Lexaeus and Zexion emerged from wherever they had been skulking, their hoods were drawn. “If we’re rested, we shouldn’t waste anymore time here,” Lexaeus said, head turning minutely back towards the shadows. “I suspect we aren’t alone.”

“This world is crawling with abominations.” Zexion’s voice had returned to its even keel, cool and calm and only just loud enough to be heard. “We have to be getting close to the historical society by now, and the probability of the storm stopping is… _low_.”

“I agree.” And wasn’t it strange, how very expert they were at pretending nothing had changed between them? Vexen reached up and pulled his hood over his face, taking to his feet again as Lexaeus made short work of upending their makeshift barricade. “We should stay close in rank. What if we encounter more of those things?”

“We won’t,” Zexion said as though it were simple fact.

And they _didn’t_. The storm continued to beat mercilessly against them, blinding in its intensity, brutal in its cruelty, but there was nothing hiding behind the drifts waiting to leap upon them. Maybe they had scared the horrid things off, after the last kill. Maybe the world had decided the scales were back in balance and that the storm was obstacle enough. Maybe it had something to do with the resigned anger radiating from Zexion in heavy, thrumming waves.

Before an hour had passed, massive shapes began to loom in front of them. Upon growing closer, the silhouettes sharpened, but were still far too veiled by the snow to fully recognize until they stood directly before them. A line of three billboards on the side of the road, their colors indistinguishable, but lettering just barely readable. 

_Silent Hill Historical Society – Next Right_ , read the first.  
  
_EVERYONE’S a winner when you have sea salt ice cream!_ The second.

 _Visit scenic Radiant Garden_ , the final implored. _Before it’s too late_.

Even if they’d been able to hear one another over the roar of the storm, none would’ve said a word. They pressed on past the signs, hunched against the cold as they struggled step by step towards their destination.

If it hadn’t been for the billboard, in retrospect, they may have missed it. The building was barely noticeable from the road, given the snow, but the slightest hint of a roof was visible if they strained their eyes enough. It was Vexen who broke off from the group first, staggering through a mound of snow delineating the street and parking lot. As he approached, the storm seemed to lighten, if only enough to give a better view of their destination.

“It’s…” he started, nearly jumping at the sound of his own voice. The storm really _must’ve_ let up. “It’s…smaller than anticipated.” There was dejection there, disappointment brought on by the lack of immediate grandeur. They had come all this way, had fought so hard against the elements to reach the historical society—to find it so tiny and derelict was, in a word, underwhelming. It was a one-story shack, really, made of old grey brick and lacking windows of any sort.

Lexaeus and Zexion had caught up by then, standing only just behind him. The wind continued to whip around them, stinging their eyes and skin as they stood, staring. “I think we should know by now not to judge based on appearances,” Lexaeus said slowly, brow furrowed in concentration as he scanned each mossy brick for sign of deception. “Its size says nothing of what’s lurking inside.”

Zexion bit back a quip about being proof positive of _that_ sentiment, opting instead to slink around Vexen to try the handle of the door. Stuck, of course. “Lexaeus, if you would.” Even over the whistling howl of the wind, his voice was strangely calm, almost foreign in its resignation. Regardless of what they’d seen, regardless of what they were still yet to face, he knew implicitly this was the only way out. He could feel it throbbing in the pit of his stomach like an old wound.

Entirely sans decorum, Lexaeus waited until Zexion had stepped aside before rearing back and slamming the heel of his boot into the door’s locking mechanism. With a thunderous _crack_ it flew back on its hinges, the interior side of the knob driving itself through the opposite wall with enough force to break through the drywall.

“ _Subtle_ ,” Vexen dryly commented. 

“ _Effective,”_ Zexion shot back, hastening past the threshold of the building, eager to remove himself from the biting cold.

Even with the door lodged open as it was, the anteroom of the historical society seemed almost to be a vacuum, eerily still and silent, heavy with the lingering scent of mold and aged wallpaper glue. It was a tiny room, made all the more cramped by a large case taking up one of the corners. It seemed to serve multiple purposes, judging by the cash register resting atop it, the chair behind it, and the ancient, yellowed maps peeking out from within the hazy glass. There was an uncomfortable moment of squirming as all three of them pushed into the room, not having anticipated the tight squeeze of the walls.

Mood further soured by the anonymous elbow pressed into his back, Vexen muttered a low, “ _What_ were you saying about appearances being deceiving?”

It was Zexion who managed to slip away from the cramped tangle first, drawn to the splintered door opposite them by some nauseating combination of dread and curiosity. The anticipation of what lay beyond pulsed through him, sending hot, longing spasms down his fingers. Through the fabric of his gloves, the doorknob seemed warm, almost _alive_. For a second—the barest instant—he thought he could hear something on the other side. A low droning of sorts, familiar enough to send the knot in his stomach into roiling waves of anxiety. A voice? Were those syllables? If he closed his eyes, pressed his ear against the wood, he could almost begin to parse words.

Without thinking, without allowing himself the courtesy of apprehension, he twisted the door’s knob in one jerking motion, pushing himself into the next room with eyes cast low, just in case he decided he couldn’t bear to look at whatever lay in front of him. 

Lexaeus reacted first, releasing a low, shallow breath through his nose. He stepped forward to join Zexion in the next room, expression stony. Vexen was the last to cross over the threshold, but the first to react _physically_ , posture going ramrod straight as his brain struggled to grasp what he was seeing.

The anteroom had been cramped and dark and heavy with the smell of mildew; what they stood in now felt to be every inch a different building entirely. A different _world_ entirely.

Above, bright and sterile lights shone down harshly, casting the space into stark contrast. Around them, walls were and were not, each in turn shimmering like heat mirages until it became impossible to tell what existed and what was only imagined. Rooms grew and shrank as they stood watching—desks, tables, and various other minutiae popping into existence before shuddering out once more. The walls were dark, then brilliantly white, then paneled with warmly stained wood, sometimes covered in complicated diagrams, sometimes blank, sometimes peppered with gilded frames. Everything seemed to spin on some unseen axis, being and then ceasing to be. It was at once pieces of memories, shards of lost time, uncomfortably familiar in the darkest folds of their minds.

It was the Castle; it was the _Castles_. It was Radiant Garden, it was the World That Never Was. And somewhere, beyond the sheen of nostalgia, it was the historical society.

“What _is_ this?” The voice hardly sounded like Vexen’s, caught low in his throat.

Finally lifting his eyes from the flickering tiles of the floor, Zexion set his shoulders, casting a wary look from corner to corner. “It’s where we’re supposed to be,” he answered simply. “We’re getting closer. Closer to home.”

Neither asked _which_ home he’d meant. Neither was sure they wanted to know.

“Be careful,” Lexaeus muttered, casting a distrustful look about the changing chamber, pipe gripped tightly in one hand. “This place doesn’t feel right.”

“I should say not.”

It was impossible to tell where the historical society began and ended. Even if the three of them had put their heads together and combined every resource between them, it was doubtful they’d be able to pinpoint the building’s edges. It felt as though the room might go on forever, walls growing and shrinking and shimmering between them as each walked. One moment they were together, the next they were separated, never confined by the same boundaries for long.

Reaching out, Lexaeus stopped to touch one of the ephemeral walls as it grew around him. He was met not with resistance, but with the full-body sensation of static. It was almost as if the hand pressed to the wall had fallen asleep, and the unpleasant tingle of pins-and-needles had spread throughout the rest of him. He pulled his hand back, flexing his fingers, and wasn’t entirely surprised when the prickling immediately ceased. He looked up, opening his mouth to report on his finding to the others…only to find himself alone.

Somehow, impossibly, he had found himself at his old post. The breath caught in his chest as he looked out on the Castle’s courtyard, the bright skies of Radiant Garden glowing in twilight. There was no wind, but the air still held a threatening bite of cold—a reminder of where he _really_ was. But the cobblestones under his feet felt so real, the greenery smelled as though it were only yards away.

Something to his right shifted, just out of his periphery, and he whirled, half expecting to see…nothing. Of course there was nothing. _No one_.

He turned back the way he had come, only to find there was no grand, looming door to the Castle. It was just the historical society, momentarily bare save for a few dusty display cases and time-weathered maps. Shaking himself out mentally, he retraced his footsteps, not daring to look over his shoulder again. If he was being honest with himself, Lexaeus didn’t know which would be worse: Having to look out at Radiant Garden again, knowing full well there was nothing he could do to stay, or simply seeing the cracked and curling wallpaper of the historical society.

Vexen had found himself in a similar predicament, alone with the creeping feeling of familiarity. The walls had appeared around him slowly enough that he hadn’t even noticed the change until the silence pressed down on him like a weight. Then it had been the smell, old and dusty and unspeakably _soothing_. He knew where he was before he so much as turned the corner.

It had been years since he’d found himself lost among the stacks of the Castle’s library, longer still since he’d sat at one of the many tables, poring over Ansem’s unmatched collection of references. If he closed his eyes and focused, though, he could almost see those long-forgotten texts. _Almost_.

The trickery of the world was nothing new, and if he knew anything, it was not to trust what he was seeing. He was under no illusion that he was _actually_ in the library, that Radiant Garden was only feet away, on the other side of the walls of books. Still, he found he couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and grab one of the old tomes nearest him. Vexen allowed it to fall open naturally, almost relieved when he found the pages were blank.

But then, slowly, as though triggered by the lights, dark marks began appearing on the yellowed paper, forming strange, abstract shapes before becoming clear print. He watched in silent dread as the book began to fill with words.

_You and yours cut into anything with a pulse, didn’t you?_

He could _hear_ the double’s voice in his head, uncannily Zexion’s, abhorrently dissonant. His skin broke out into goosebumps as his ears filled with the horrid sensation of listening to something rusted dragging down a chalkboard. And still, the words kept floating to the surface of the page, forcing his eyes to follow along.

 _How many lives did_ you _take, I wonder? How many_ families _did you_ destroy _? Who among us is the_ real _monster?_

 _I have_ never _, in all my years, seen anyone_ half _so wracked with_ guilt _and_ remorse _. It hangs over you like a leaden shadow._

 _You’re all the same. Lying to yourselves, swallowing down the lies of others, gorging yourselves on any and everything that might serve to help you forget—just for_ one more day _—the truth of what you’ve done. Of who you are. Failures. Murderers. Monsters._

The words took on a distinctly different shape, then, and without consciously realizing it, he recognized the mad scrawlings of the notes he’d picked up in the hospital an eternity ago.

_dark dark dark and all I want is my mother where is my mother help me please please its so dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark  
_

_stay out of the basement no one ever leaves_

_they cant help you anymore and I wont let them hurt you_

_You_ reek _of fear. Fear of harm, fear of abandonment, fear of_ failing.

 _the basement means death_

And then, finally, appearing in a tight, neat scrawl at the very bottom of the page: _How does it feel to be on the other side for once?_

Vexen slammed the book and his eyes shut.

When he opened his eyes again, the book was gone. The library was gone. All that remained was the hollowed out interior of the historical society.

Zexion had watched as the world around him shifted, the others disappearing from his view behind shimmering curtains of air before the room took shape under his feet. He knew the tiles as well as he knew the reflection staring up from them. Sometimes, during the odd occasion where his sleeping mind allowed him to dream, he came back to this place.

He had spent so much of his life wandering through the Castle, had exhausted so many hours of his formative years trying to find hiding spots and secret passages. He could smell the wood polish on the bannisters he’d always been too afraid to slide down, could hear the echoes of his own boots as he walked around the wide, open space of the foyer. Lowering his eyes back to the floor, he stared down at his own face in the shining floor tiles, trying to remember the last time he’d stood there. When had been the last time? The _very_ last time?

There was a strange, passing moment of vertigo as he lifted his gaze and found he was _still_ staring into his own face. He narrowed his eyes, trying to decide whether time was lagging around him, or…Zexion paused, the line of his mouth tightening as he took in what he was seeing.

The expression on his face was impossible to parse, save for the obvious intrigue. As he neared the portrait, the faintest sliver of his tongue slid out to wet his lips, his fingers absently pushing the fringe of his hair behind an ear to clear his vision. Had these really hung in the Castle? Had they watched over the Garden? _All_ of them? Somehow, the others’ stern faces were missing from his memory, as though their gilded frames had hung empty. For some strange reason, he could only remember Xehanort’s, the largest image of them all, the most imposing of them all, high and mighty as it oversaw the rest of them. 

Now as they were, all in one neat line, he found he couldn’t remember precisely whether he’d _ever_ seen them before. Had Ansem _cared_ for _any_ of them as intensely as he had Xehanort? Had he ever even _considered_ immortalizing any of his _other_ Apprentices on canvas? 

Had he even remembered he _had_ Apprentices other than Xehanort?

Before he realized what he was doing, he’d reached out to the wall, fingers just barely skimming the regal curve of his own jaw. A vein of black shot out across the wall from the point of contact, forking out like an inky lightning strike. Zexion drew his hand back with a sharp breath, watching wide-eyed as it spread across the portraits, some horrible mold growing and creeping from his own influence. He clapped his hand over his mouth before thinking better of it and withdrawing, fingers wrapped around his other wrist as he watched the dark veins spread throughout the room.

The darkness crept from canvas to canvas, soaking through in thick tendrils, leaving each face wrought with dark slashes not entirely unlike claw marks. He swallowed hard as he witnessed his own face darken, the black veins pulsing up his neck before reaching for his eyes, obscuring everything but the harsh curve of his mouth.

As though on cue, the walls encapsulating him dissolved without a trace, revealing the other two, still standing almost immediately to either side of him. They took in the scene in an instant, watching as the inky veins forked through the very air between them, creeping across walls that hadn’t yet taken shape.

“What did you _do?_ ” Vexen asked, voice easily overpowered as Lexaeus spoke over him.

“What happened?”

They gathered around him, Lexaeus focused on Zexion’s resolute staring, Vexen’s eyes fixed, instead, on the familiar dark tendrils spreading across the wall. There was silence from Zexion for a long time, almost as if he hadn’t heard them at all. He remained unmoving, watching soundlessly as the last few details of his face were devoured before him. Slowly, his chest deflated in a quiet sigh. He turned from the line of portraits as they were absorbed back into the ether, folding his arms across his chest, where they could do no further damage. His lips formed words, but his voice was not behind them. He dropped his head into his hands, clutching at his face with desperate fingers, as a child might upon waking from a nightmare.

Silence from the other two, exchanging anxious glances as Zexion turned his back on them.

“Everything _rots_.” There was something cloying in Zexion’s voice, something like desperation, something like revelation. “Everything I touch _rots_ from the inside out.”

It was _Vexen_ , then, who had to bite back a remark. There was an uncomfortable lurch of his stomach as he remembered the apartment complex—and the child’s bedroom. He supposed he was the last to cast judgment. After all, things had a habit of rotting under his hand, as well. 

Even when ravaged with disease, the apple never fell too far from the tree, it seemed. He cast the line of portraits one last contemplative look as they were reduced to little more than lines of negative space, the wall blinking itself out of existence.

Footsteps echoing flatly in the strange, amorphous room, Zexion circled around a space that was at once nothing and what could’ve been a desk. Only after a long moment of staring, blinking hard to bring it into focus, did it become apparent what they were looking at. Or where they were. “It’s Ansem’s,” he said simply, breaking the tense silence that had fallen between them.

“That it is.” The room around the desk had remained almost blindingly white, the tiled carpeting moldy; and yet it was Ansem’s study. How many times had Vexen— _Even_ —found himself in front of that desk, pointing to diagrams, brandishing papers? He could live another hundred years or so and still remember each whorl of the wood grain like it was yesterday. He didn’t reach out to touch it; neither did the other two.

The three stood in front of it, muscles tight. Each felt at once as though they were disobedient children, sneaking around where they didn’t belong. Worse, they felt _caught_. They could almost _feel_ the reverberations of his voice filling the room, enraged and indignant, and above all else, _betrayed_.

Near the end, the double had said something to them. Perhaps it had only spoken it to Zexion, perhaps it had said it to Vexen and Lexaeus as well, but the sentiment echoed dully in all of their minds in unison, as if through telepathy. No one left until they faced judgment for what they had done. The world would take its pound of flesh one way or another.

Together, they had to face the reality of that. Inanimate as it was, innocuous as it was, the desk somehow emphasized the point. They might have been close, but they had not escaped from it yet. The worst, it felt, was still yet to come.

“Do you think—” Lexaeus had started, only to be cut off as Zexion took one resolute step forward, placing both hands down on the surface of the desk.

It had been a swift, choppy motion, suggesting he had only just wrested enough gall to attempt it. For a moment, he leaned over the desk, fingers splayed. He looked as though he had come to demand something of Ansem. Or, the others thought, almost like a supplicant. He straightened himself back up with a heavy exhale, having answered a private question, but felt the skin of his arms begin to prickle as his handprints appeared in the wood before him.

Horribly reminiscent of the portraits’ decay, the desk began to crumble in on itself, the wood quickly desiccating and warping. The legs cracked, trembled, gave way, leaving a heap of sharp corners and splintering wood on the ground. Only moments later, it was little more than dust.

Zexion’s hands balled themselves into the fabric of his cloak, held firmly at his sides.

Just beyond the ashen pile, a new wall slowly shimmered into creation, taking shape in much the same way the desk had melted. The three watched, wordlessly, as the barrier became solid. With a crack not unlike a lightning strike, a single rift appeared before them, eroding the wall until a sizeable hole had been carved out, beckoning them closer.

The message had been delivered. With no other avenues to explore, Lexaeus took the lead and approached the gaping, hungry chasm. “Watch.” He lifted an arm to hold the other two back from getting too close, squinting as he attempted to look through to the other side.

At first, it seemed almost as though the hole simply ended in an immediate, precipitous drop into nothingness. It was only once the insectile buzz of overhead lights began to click on one after another that the stairs became apparent. The passage was cramped and shallow, the staircase gleaming with a threatening slickness that instantly registered as familiar to the three of them.

Without any prompting, Vexen felt a cold lurching in his stomach. _Stay out of the basement_ , one of the many notes in the hospital had read, _no one ever leaves_. At the time, he had taken it to mean the basement of the hospital. Now, after coming across the cryptic parroting of the book in the false library, and even more so as he stood in front of the hidden descent, he found himself wondering. _Stay out of the basement_. He could still see the scribbled writing in his mind, could feel an icy hand of dread tightening its grip on his throat. _Stay out of the basement_.

“There’s nowhere else to go…” Zexion muttered as though reading his mind, arms folded tightly across his chest. A cursory glance around the shifting room showed no trace of the door they’d entered through, nor much else.

“No banisters,” Vexen pointed out, lips pursed together as he examined the sterile white walls, mulling over the maelstrom of warning bells going off in his head. “We would be _asking_ to fall over each other.”

“I’ll go first.” Not that there would be any question—Lexaeus had already shouldered his way to the front, pipe gripped tightly in both hands. Squeezing through the opening was obviously difficult for him, but once through, the passage opened just enough for him to comfortably start down the steps. He turned to look over his shoulder, brow furrowing when he was not immediately followed.

A moment passed between Vexen and Zexion as they stood before the gap in the wall, both waiting for the other to step forward. After a particularly pointed look, Vexen grumbled an incoherent curse and started down the stairs behind Lexaeus, leaving Zexion to bring up the rear.

They made their way down, down, down, disheartened but hardly surprised when they realized the spiraling nature of the staircase. It was almost as though they were walking in endless circles, descending forever. The overhead lights clicked on as they neared, fizzled out as they passed, only adding to the illusion of perpetuity.

An obscene amount of time seemed to elapse in that way, the three of them corkscrewing deeper and deeper into the bowels of the historical society. Not until Zexion made a small, strangled sound, though, did either of the others realize how very fatigued they were. Lexaeus turned first, but Vexen was closer, giving him a better vantage point of the scene. It was easy to assume Zexion was simply tired, still weary from his experiences in the world, but something was off.

He didn’t so much _sit_ on the stairs behind them, so much as he appeared to have _crumpled_ to them, his knees and shoulders drawn up tightly against him. There was a glassiness to his eyes, wide under the shadow of his hair, and his skin had gone the sallow color of curdled milk. 

There was no room to adjust their order, else Vexen suspected Lexaeus would’ve pushed past him. “What’s wrong?”

“You…you don’t…?” It was then that they realized the strangest detail of all—Zexion’s hands were clapped firmly over his ears. His fingers had knotted in his hair with the sheer intensity of the action, and he clenched his eyes shut. “You don’t _hear_ that?” He mouthed another word before the shape of his lips curled into a pained grimace. “How can you not _hear that?!_ ”

Vexen and Lexaeus looked from Zexion to each other, perplexed. There was nothing but the sound of their own footsteps and the lights above, and while the repetition had grown tedious, it certainly wasn’t as torturous as Zexion was letting on. Vexen opened his mouth to say as much, but paused. Because if he paid attention, _really_ strained his ears…there _was_ something else.

Just the faintest hint of a sound, coming from deep below them. Judging by the look on Lexaeus’s face, the way he turned his head toward the darkened path they hadn’t yet reached, he had heard it too. It was slightly _too_ far away to make out, but strangely enough, made Vexen think almost of waves crashing against a shoreline. A low, quiet sort of roar.

And then it began to grow in volume. It became louder and more intense, rushing at them until it was crashing over them in a wave of an entirely different sort.

The screams were the first to come, wavering and ragged, coming from hoarse voices and coarse throats. There were words somewhere in the chaos, tremulous pleas that came across as more inflection than syllables. There was sobbing, there was begging, there were wails of pain and torment the likes of which they couldn’t have _imagined_. It was children, it was the elderly, it was animals, it was _unspeakable_. 

Zexion screwed his face up against the raging cries as Vexen and Lexaeus staggered, bracing themselves to keep from falling. He felt his gorge rise threateningly, felt his palms go clammy with sweat, and no matter how hard he pressed his palms to his ears, the cacophony would _not_ abate. He could feel a dagger of pain splitting his brain right between his eyes, sending throbbing jolts of pain stabbing through his skull. His eyes watered from the pain, from the unending shrieking, unable to form a single cogent thought other than _stop stop stop stop stop stopstopstopstopstop “STOP!”_

There was a disquieting suctioning noise, a rush of air blowing past them, and the shouting stopped. As if some drain plug had been pulled, the screaming seemed to be _pulled_ back to the unseen bottom of the staircase, leaving nothing but deafening silence in its wake. They were left with nothing but the sounds of their own breathing and the dying buzz above.

Zexion slowly, tentatively, opened his eyes, teeth still grit against the agony that had streaked his cheeks with tear tracks. His ears rung with the memory of the discordance, tinny echoes assuring him that whatever had just happened, he had _not_ imagined it. 

Having similarly recovered from the ordeal, Vexen leaned against one of the walls, taking deep, steadying breaths. “What,” he began, “Was tha—”

Underneath them, the world positively _heaved_ with another tremor; never during their stay in the world had _any_ of the quakes been _half_ so strong. The very ground itself seemed to rise up, drop, and then _push_ , sending them tumbling over themselves. There were muted sounds of shock and fright as they went tripping, stumbling, and in Zexion’s case, nearly _rolling_ down.

Only from years of practice against such upheavals, Lexaeus was able to momentarily regain his footing, bracing his arms against both sides of the passage with all the strength he could muster, forming a makeshift barricade. Vexen slammed into his back, but he barely flinched. There was a muffled sound of pain as Zexion too crashed into them, but still his grip held. They rode out the rest of the tremor like that, balled against one another, relying on Lexaeus’s brawn to keep them from hurtling further downwards.

“Is everyone all right?” he asked as the final shakes died down.

“Oh, _never better_ ,” Vexen seethed, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, feeling for bumps or contusions. 

Zexion’s reply came after a pause. “Still in one piece.”

He accepted that with a faint nod, relaxing his grip on the walls and starting his careful descent again. “There’s a landing up ahead,” he reported over his shoulder, not yet allowing his chest to flood with the warmth of relief. “We’re probably getting close. We may even have already reached the bottom.” 

“ _Extremely_ doubtful,” Vexen murmured, more to himself than the others, a noticeable tremble in his extremities as he followed after Lexaeus. Usually, there was _nothing_ he enjoyed more than being able to revel in the fact that he’d been right. This time, however, Vexen was wholly disappointed.

The landing had no foreseeable end, that much was true, but a few feet in, the passage widened, revealing tens of doors to either side of them.

It was a familiar scene.

The first door they passed confirmed their fears. While there was a window cut out of the top half of it, thick wrought-iron bars separated them from whatever was being held behind it. There were no locks, but heavy chains wrapped from door to door, extending down the passage like a child’s ribbon.

“No one says a word,” Zexion spoke quietly, almost reverently. He doubted either needed to be told as much, but hearing his own voice so steady did a great deal to settle the roiling of his stomach.

They all knew where they were. They all knew what they were seeing, and what they were being forced to remember. The details were off, the scene was imperfect, but it was more than accurate enough, considering it was coming from the twisted remains of a child’s memory.

There were no sounds coming from behind the doors. No screams, no shouts, no soft whimpers. There was no movement. There was... _nothing_. It stood, a silent graveyard, a testament to their past actions. In some strange way, it felt somehow _worse;_ Zexion wondered dimly if he would’ve _preferred_ the shrieking to begin again, if it would’ve been less of a weight on his lungs if he _had_ seen arms reaching for them through the bars, begging for mercy. Brow furrowed, driven more by impulse than rationale, he turned to one of the doors as they passed, grabbing the bars himself, angling his head as best he could to look in. He had come so far already, he wasn’t about to let the world dangle this uncertainty over him. The room beyond was dark, save for the barest sliver of light shining in from under the door, and he found he couldn’t restrain his gasp when something moved. “What… _is_ that?” he whispered.

Lexaeus and Vexen paused, realizing they had again lost him along the way. They exchanged looks, and Vexen begrudgingly turned tail to collect him. “What’s what?” he asked, almost flippantly, glancing into the cell. It was his turn to fail to suppress a noise of disgust. Even in the darkness, he could recognize the spindly figure. The horrid, desiccated monstrosity that had pursued him and Lexaeus in the apartments.

Before, they had assumed it was nothing but another horrendous creation of the world, preying on baser fears of insects and death, but now…now, as close as they were, as protected as they were, the truth was made horribly apparent.

Its long, disjointed fingers, its open sternum, its lack of a heart; the way it appeared to be cobbled together of different bodies, fused under a thin layer of peeling skin. It was the way it couched itself in the shadow and feared the light. And it was its _eyes_. Six, eight, _ten?_ It became impossible to tell with the way that they rolled and shifted, all-seeing, all-knowing, glowing orange-red in the darkness. It seemed the Guards _weren’t_ the only ones Ienzo had feared.

Zexion made no comment as he looked at the creature. He slowly released his grip from the door’s bars, and, taking advantage of the passage’s wider berth, pushed past Lexaeus and Vexen to continue down the passage. He was tired of all the reminders.

“Don’t get too far ahead—” Lexaeus began, but it was already too late. Zexion had disappeared from the line of sight.

After the doors, the landing metamorphosed into stairs once more, still spiraling ever farther downward. He took them one at a time, keeping one hand firmly on the wall to his left to prevent any slipping. That, too, was familiar. It was _all_ familiar. The buzzing of the overhead lights coalesced with the low buzzing in his head, forming a heavy pit in his stomach. He had to know what was at the bottom of the staircase, needed to put an end to the torment. But the lingering uncertainty filled his legs and fingers with the heady thrum of adrenaline.

What if the stairs never ended? What if he found himself at the base of the staircase, only to have reemerged in the mansion where the others had found him? What if it ended right where it had begun, and he walked back into the strange shifting room of the historical society? What if he found himself waking in the underground labs, still smothered by the floor where he’d fallen? 

“Zexion!” came Vexen’s voice from behind him, reproachful but not nearly as harsh as usual. “ _Zexion!_ ”

With a curt huff of breath, he turned to look over his shoulder. “What?” His eyes widened minutely as a faint rumble began under their feet, jostling the staircase only slightly. Zexion froze, Vexen froze, Lexaeus froze, each holding the precise pose they had been in when the shaking commenced. The sentiment was immediately apparent to the trio: The order had been changed, Lexaeus was no longer in the front…and if the world decided to quake again, there was no chance of Zexion bracing them all against it. For a moment, Zexion entertained the thought of slowly creeping back up to tuck himself behind the others. But he knew, in much the same way he knew they were nearing the end of their path, that it would not be a possibility. “This was…a definite miscalculation,” he muttered.

The floor seemed to give way beneath them as the faint shaking intensified into powerful quaking, just as intense as before. Stairs zipped past under their feet, almost appearing to move of their own accord as they fell, slammed up against the walls and sharp corners of the steps.

Then, suddenly, as though some illusion had shattered, it no longer only _seemed_ that the floor had fallen out from under them. The staircase ended abruptly, offering no warning save for a jagged, rocky lip before giving way entirely.

Having been out in front, Zexion was the first to fall—and the first to land. The impact was agonizing, more than enough to knock the breath from out of him, but dazed as he was, he still had the foresight to attempt a weak roll to the side. Not even a second later, there were two consecutive and unpleasantly meaty _thumps_ , immediately followed by the sound of muted groaning. His ribs may have ached something awful, his elbows and knees were more than likely skinned, but at least Zexion hadn’t been _landed on_. “Still in one piece?” he asked, parroting his earlier statement. 

There was a long, silent pause, peppered with coughing and muffled sounds of pain. “ _One_ piece? No. _Several?_ Perhaps.” Vexen’s voice was strained.

With a low grunt, Zexion pushed himself up into a sitting position, taking his time as his muscles screamed in protest. He had the sinking suspicion there would be a nasty knot on the back of his head by the end of day, with the way it throbbed from impact. He had only just reached up to rub at his neck when it struck him—the _reek_. Against himself, Zexion physically spasmed, fighting against the furious heaving of his stomach. He had only seconds to double over again, gagging and coughing as he retched; there was nothing in his stomach to vomit out, but the ensuing dry heaving was positively torturous.

“What on—”

“The _smell_ ,” he managed to weakly eke out, bracing himself on shaking arms. “Oh God…”

And once he spoke it, the others caught the faintest hint of a scent on the air. Heady, metallic, and gruesomely _sweet_. It wasn’t nearly enough to bowl them over as it had Zexion, but he had always had a particularly acute sense of smell.

“What _is_ that?” Zexion muttered, voice low, almost childlike in its desperation. The chamber around them wasn’t _perfectly_ dark, but enough so that it was all but impossible to see anything. “It’s _awful_ …” Gingerly, he eased himself to his feet, spreading his arms and fingers to feel for anything lurking in the shadows. “Where are we?”

Eyes closed, Vexen continued to lie on the ground even as he heard Lexaeus right himself. “I’m going to make a _radical_ suggestion that perhaps we’re underground.”

Blinking hard and slitting his eyes, Zexion slowly began picking up on the shapes around them. There was a glow to the room, almost imperceptible, affording him the barest outlines of what seemed to be thick growths reaching out from the walls. The chamber was huge, stretching into darkness with no discernible edges; above, there wasn’t so much as a hint of a ceiling. How far had they fallen? How deep had the staircase run? Their voices, hushed as they were, echoed almost endlessly, doubling and trebling over themselves until it sounded as though they were surrounded by whispering spectators.

As he examined their dark surroundings, something caught his eye. Zexion’s stomach heaved again, filling his mouth with the acidic taste of bile. His extremities went numb, his lungs constricted painfully, he felt himself begin to sway.

He knew that figure.

“At the mansion…” he began slowly, folding his arms almost protectively across his chest. “You told me…you told me that not everything I was seeing was real.” A sliver of his tongue appeared, wetting his lower lip in contemplation. Zexion lowered his eyes and stared at the ground, gaze pointed enough to suggest he was watching some epic scene unfold before him. “And I’m realizing now that this world is…it’s _good_ at making you believe you’re seeing things that aren’t there.” He exhaled deeply before pursing his lips, still not raising his eyes from the floor. “So I have to ask. Can you see him too? Or…is it just me?”

A crease appeared in Vexen’s forehead. His eyes hadn’t yet grown accustomed to the dark, and through the technicolor flashing tattooed on his retinas, there was little he could make out, save for vague shapes. “See _who?_ ” Once on his feet, he whipped his head from side to side as though to shake the scales from his eyes. “All I see is the two of you.”

But that wasn’t entirely true.

While the shape of Zexion’s silhouette suggested he was still staring fixedly at the ground, it was apparent that Lexaeus was not. As his face began to take shape in the darkness, Vexen realized the Hero was looking past him— _behind_ him. Consumed by dread, driven by curiosity, he slowly turned to follow the other’s line of sight.

And there, some yards away, was… _something_. A black silhouette standing strikingly against the shadows around it. It seemed to absorb the faint glow of the room, sucking in the light to become nothing more than perfect darkness. Its shape was human. But when it turned to them, its movement was not.

“You see him,” Zexion said softly, voice little more than a whisper caught in his throat.

Lexaeus made a low sound of confirmation in the darkness.

“ _Him?_ ” Vexen asked. The incredulity was thick in his voice—whatever stood in front of them was an _“it,”_ not a “ _him,_ ” not a _person._ Not until it opened its eyes. Vexen’s throat ran dry and sharp as ground stone. “ _Him_ ,” he repeated, stomach tight. There was no forgetting those eyes. Those dark, all-knowing, amber eyes. “Of course it’s him.”

The sudden shine of the thing’s eyes had the strangest effect, as the chamber began to grow lighter and lighter around them. Immediately, the source of the rancid smell made itself horribly apparent. What Zexion had taken to be growths jutting out from the walls were _limbs_ , reaching and drooping from the rock like plant roots. It was only when he looked closer that he saw the holes carved into the walls, makeshift morgue drawers dripping carrion like stalactites.

Vexen was struck with another awful wave of déjà vu as the greenish light grew stronger, originating from what seemed to be jars—hundreds and hundreds of jars—studding the walls in the holes uninhabited by corpses. Floating within them were human hearts, pale and swollen with preserving fluids. Impossibly, they constricted and throbbed against the light, casting strange shadows.

And there, standing before them in the center of the underground graveyard, was the most terrifying of the monsters they’d yet to face. The sharp, angular features, the austere brow, the dull blond hair. As the lights grew brighter, it became impossible to deny. Not with the pristine white lab coat and the heavy red mantle wrapped around his shoulders.

“Ansem.” Zexion’s voice was a breath and nothing more. 

“ _HOW DARE YOU?!_ ” His voice was thunderous, deafening, and horrendously familiar. It filled the chamber and grew impossibly, repeating and crashing upon itself with such raw, furious power that loose sheets of rock began crashing down from the ceiling; the sheer sonic _blast_ knocked their balance from under them.

Lexaeus, accustomed as he was to seismic upheaval, caught himself before he could fall, using his free arm to balance himself as he knelt. Zexion and Vexen, less fortunate, fell prostrate, the test of rancid dust filling their mouths.

“How _dare_ you show your faces here? After all you’ve done? After what you’ve become?!” From where they were on the ground, Ansem seemed to loom stories tall, face red with indignation, insult, _disgust_. He neared them, each word punctuated by a heavy stride, approaching and growing until it was undeniable—he _was_ stories tall.

They shuddered at the realization, most making some choked noise of horror as the gravity of the situation became clear.

The imperfection of the thing was all Lexaeus needed. Already on his feet, he leapt, striking out at the thing with a furious swing of the metal pipe.

Without a thought, Ansem reached out a hand and batted it away as though it were a fly, sending Lexaeus sprawling in shock. “Insolence. All of you. Backstabbers, traitors, _murderers_.” 

Vexen scrambled to his feet as the thing approached them, trying to put more distance between himself and it. “This isn’t right,” he muttered, trying desperately to avoid eye contact. “What _is_ this?”

“What you’ve been running from for so long,” Ansem answered, the anger in his voice as putrid as the smell of death wafting around them. “Judgment for _everything you’ve done_.”

He had expected it, had known it was coming, but the words sent shards of glass stabbing through Zexion’s gut. He could taste something reminiscent of regret on the back of his tongue, coppery and slick. Try as he might, there was no strength to push himself up from the ground. His legs and arms trembled at the thought of having to face Ansem, having to look into his eyes. He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that the others would’ve just left him in the mansion. There he had been warm, there the words had been soft and forgiving and false.

“You’ve all been hiding in the shadows for too long. Cockroaches, the lot of you.” Ansem cast his gaze, grading and haughty, across their varying states of debilitation. “Hiding from what you _are_.” 

Lexaeus took to his feet again, attempting another strike, unmoved by the thing’s face or words; he found himself quite moved, though, when Ansem’s hand closed around the end of the pipe and flung him to the side as though he were nothing. He crashed into one of the walls, sending a handful of jars clattering to the floor, their horrible contents throbbing erratically as they were displaced from their liquid.

“Pathetic. Even _now_ you try and fight it. There’s no escaping what you’ve done. There’s no ignoring the _ruination_ you’ve caused.”

“ _Stop_.” Zexion’s voice was shaky, muffled by the dirt. He swallowed hard as he _felt_ Ansem’s eyes fixate on the top of his head, adam’s apple working furiously as he fought against his rising gorge.

There was silence on Ansem’s end as he circled nearer to him, considering him. “You,” he said finally, an accusation more than an address. “ _You_ , of them _all_ … _you_ are the one who dares to defy me. _Again_.” The disgust on his face was almost comical in its extremity. “After all I _did_ for you, and _still_ you think so highly of yourself. I took you in. I gave you _everything_ you could want for. And this is how you repay me? You betray my trust, you torture, maim, _kill_ at whim? Have you not stopped to look upon the _shell_ of the Gardens? It is barren and dead and _black_ as your soul, _boy_.” His lip curled in a sneer, “You are my greatest disappointment of all. You should’ve joined your parents. The world would’ve been better for it.”

“ _No._ ” The suddenness of Zexion’s voice, the sheer ferocity of it, brought the chaos to a momentary halt. Lip curled in a snarl, Zexion straightened himself up, finally standing from the ground. Steeling his shoulders and resolve, he spoke as he stared down the looming face before him. “You don’t get to lecture _me_ about disappointment.” His volume was low, but the room seemed seized by perfect silence, sharpening his every syllable.

Ansem’s face warped with rage, twisting into an inhuman mask of fury. “You betrayed—”

“ _You_ betrayed _me!_ ” Incensed, he punctuated the shout with a curt motion of his arm. “You promised me a better life! You promised a _family!_ You were supposed to…” there was the barest moment where his voice, so certain and so strong, caught in his throat. “You were supposed to _care_ about me.” The snarl deepened, “Xehanort was a despot, but at least _he_ delivered on his promises.”

And it was the strangest thing, likely nothing more than a trick the sickly light was playing on their eyes, but it almost appeared that Ansem was suddenly not quite so large. Vexen furrowed his brow and glanced briefly to Lexaeus for confirmation, but his eyes were riveted on the space between the other two, the pipe held tightly in his grip.

“You turned your back on everything we stood for! You forsook _everything_ to ally yourself with him. Everything we had worked for—”

“No. _No_.” Zexion’s voice grew stronger, louder, and he went so far as to take a brazen step forward. “ _You_ brought him in. _You_ neglected all of _us_ for him. We had lost our novelty, our shine. And there he was, a new challenge. A bright, gleaming new soul for you to influence and claim for yourself.” His posture became straighter, his comportment more characteristic. “ _You_ brought him to _us_. Even after you saw how he was— _what_ he was—you left him to his own devices.” Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head incrementally to the side, “You knew what he was doing. You knew he was dangerous. And yet you _left him with us_. You had already pushed us all to the wayside for him, did you really expect any differently? You forced us into a pit of vipers, and you were _surprised_ when we had the _audacity_ to be bitten.”

“You _dare_ speak to me in such a way?! You act as though you were blameless— _you_ were the one who came crawling to me to have those damnable laboratories built, _you_ were the one who acted as his infernal mouthpiece, _you_ —”

“And _you_ built them! And _you_ listened!” Zexion’s hands had balled into fists at his sides. As he spoke, his hackles and the color of his face began to rise. “You could’ve stopped it! You knew what was happening, you were watching us all _die!_ We were fading, _changing!_ You wouldn’t trust anything we said or did of our own volition, but when _he_ was pulling the strings, you just went along with it, didn’t you? You wanted to see what would happen.” The realization tasted like vomit in his mouth, “You did. You wanted to see what would happen to us.”

With a sharp gesture of his hand, Ansem sent the room shaking, the rocky ground under them splitting along fault lines, sending the three of them sprawling. It had all the gravitas of a parent slapping their child’s wrist. “You deserved worse.”

Never missing a beat, Zexion pushed himself to his feet again, turning to Ansem defiantly. “No,” he said once more, the word becoming exponentially easier to say as time wore on. “I _didn’t_.”

Separated as they were, there was nothing to keep Ansem from advancing on Zexion, face red, the cords of his neck prominent with rage. “You were a _monster!_ ”

“ _I was a child!_ ” Zexion froze as though he’d been slapped across the face, eyes and mouth open with silent surprise as the realization dawned on him for what was very likely the first time. “I was a _child_ …” he repeated, softer, as if the words might shatter in his mouth. He looked back up at Ansem, “And what happened to Radiant Garden _wasn’t_ my fault.” And then, still softer, still awed, “It was _yours._ ”

A scream unlike anything they had ever heard erupted from Ansem’s mouth, shaking the room and dislodging rock, swaying them all on their feet. Before them, the coat he wore began to fade and tear, revealing the awful, rotting skin underneath. As they watched, it became a burial shroud, doing little to shield the putrefaction of his flesh from their view. The heavy red mantle slithered around his neck, tightening and tightening and tightening before one end shot up towards the darkened arc of the ceiling of its own volition. As his skeletal jaw gnashed, his feet lifted from the ground, the dark fabric of the makeshift noose taught around his throat.

The shaking of the room was more than enough to throw them from where they stood, the very shelf of rock underneath their feet moving as though alive while the echoes of Ansem’s shout reverberated around them. Though they stumbled, it was Zexion now who seemed the most prepared, the most steeled, the most able to compensate against the tectonic heaving.

“Everything that happened…it was all _you_.” He watched in what might’ve been childlike wonder once upon a time as the creature’s jaw unhinged once again, revealing perfect lines of rotting teeth. It shrieked, the sound causing another cascade of rock and dust from the unseen ceiling, but the echoes masked its cause. Anger? Pain? Fear? “ _You_ were their ruler. _You_ were their protector. And it was _you_ who let the darkness in.”

As though to counter his point, the desiccated skin around its eyes split apart, revealing not the dark amber irises they had come to expect, but twin pits of blinding, intense white light. It cut through the dim lighting of the room like a pair of knives, burning strange shapes onto their retinas if they mistakenly looked upon it for a moment too long. It screamed again, its voice piercing their ears, filling their heads with crackling noise as white and intense as the light coming from its eyes.

Vexen turned away with a sharp yell, clapping his palms over his face. Raising his arm, Lexaeus shielded his eyes from the flash. “ _Zexion!_ ” he snapped, voice a sharp thunderclap among the rumbling echoes. His only response was an impatient wave, a curt motion that told him in no uncertain terms to leave it be.

Eyes slit against the light, Zexion raised his voice to be heard over the unholy din. And though it strained, though it cracked, it never wavered. “ _You_ brought all of this on us. You gave us no _choice!_ Nothing we ever did was good enough...nothing _I_ ever did was good enough. Of _course_ we defected! What else _could_ we do?” He just kept getting closer and closer to the horrid thing, advancing on what had once been Ansem as though he couldn’t see its bones and teeth and rage.

It rounded on him, its feet swinging off the ground as the endless noose pulled it further up into the darkness. Opening its eyes wider and wider still, the room filled with fiery white light, making it all but impossible to see.

The light was such that it became impossible to make out more than vague outlines, but even so, Lexaeus could see what was about to happen. Zexion was blinded, he was distracted, and that meant he was open to attack. There was a shift in the air, a current carrying with it the awful, rank stench of carrion, and he saw it happen in slow motion: It was going to rush him. The inhuman spindles of its arms stretched wide, its skeletal jaw hung open at an uncanny angle, and it flew forward with a ghostly speed.

He hadn’t been able to strike the double, no matter how greatly he had wanted or _needed_ to—the very thought that it _might_ have been Zexion had been deterrent enough—but now, with no other options, Lexaeus lashed out. Without a shred of warning or decorum, he grabbed one of Zexion’s shoulders and _flung_ him as far from the beast as his strength allowed, sending him skidding out of harm’s way only an instant before the creature charged forward, roaring in fury when it realized it had been slighted.

Lexaeus jumped back and prepared himself for attack. There was a strange shift in the displacement of his weight, and there was an instant where he nearly stumbled from the slight disorientation it brought with it. When he looked down, Skysplitter had appeared where the pipe had only just been. It may not have been his _proudest_ moment, but for a brief time he simply gaped at the weapon.

Vexen’s head whipped to the side, gaze following Zexion as he was thrown out of harm’s way. Frantically he looked back to Lexaaeus, opened his mouth to call out, but stopped cold when he saw the other’s weapon. “ _How did you do that?!_ ” he yelled, voice shrill over the monstrous shouts filling the cavern. 

“ _Don’t care!_ ” he yelled back, already on the move. The weight in his hand was familiar, and it promised results. With a mighty swing, the blade connected with the monster and it _howled_ , whirling on him angrily before sizing up the threat he posed.

Realizing attacking Lexaeus would be a losing prospect, it swiveled on its cloth pivot, facing the direction Zexion had been tossed in. It rushed forward anew, arms stretched forward, bony fingers poised to grab.

This time, it was Vexen’s turn to watch the scene unfold. Zexion was still on the ground, easing himself to his elbows from the force of Lexaeus’s throw. His back was to the creature. He was none the wiser.

And Vexen couldn’t say why he did what he did, perhaps he’d _never_ really know, but in that moment, sprawled on the floor as he was, Zexion looked every inch the sad and sick little child who had expired on the floor of the underground labs. Something in the pit of his stomach tightened, sending shocks of _something_ up into the cavernous chasm of his chest, and he lurched forward. He reached Zexion a bare second before the creature’s fingers swiped out, and he clenched his eyes shut and braced himself for the crushing impact he’d thrown himself into. 

It never came. Instead, there was a heavy squeal, as of metal scraping metal. Vexen cracked an eye, expecting to see the beast inches from his face, and found himself staring at the back of his shield. Frozen Pride had materialized.

Shocked, he made a low sound of confusion, only momentarily looking back towards Zexion. The other seemed _just_ as startled, though his eyes were not on the shield, but Vexen himself.

“Did you just—” Zexion began to say, but the hollering of the monstrosity cut him off before his thought could be finished.

It reared its head back and _screamed,_ the skin over its eyes closing with the effort. The light from the pits of its skull momentarily dimmed and as it flickered, they _all_ realized the truth of the matter—the beast _was_ growing smaller. It was shrinking. With each of Zexion’s realizations, every cathartic breakthrough, it became more human-sized.

More conquerable.

Zexion pushed himself to his feet as Lexaeus rushed over to them, and even though he kept himself tucked behind the safety of Frozen Pride, there was nothing hesitant about his stance. “I was small, and I was weak, and _I was a child_ ,” he said again, the words heavy in his mouth, bitter as medicine; it was obvious he was still grappling with the meaning of them, with the ramifications of the thought. When he raised his eyes again, his gaze landed unflinchingly on the rancid corpse. “I’m _done_ feeling sorry for myself.” The light of the room flickered, plunging them into perfect darkness. When it lifted, there was a large, weighty, _familiar_ book in Zexion’s hand. His eyes narrowed incrementally. “And I’m not afraid of _you_ anymore.”

The desperation was apparent in the creature’s next shriek. It charged at them again, spreading wide its arms in an attempt to strike them all in one devastating sweep.

But the air had changed. The room had changed. _They_ had changed. They felt it at once, a warm sensation creeping in from every side at once. It was as though they had all three broken the surface of some icy ocean wherein they’d been drowning, and only _now_ were able to take deep, gulping breaths of air. It washed over them in a sudden, powerful wave, threatening to bowl them over. They were _whole_ again.

An executioner and his heavy axe, an attendant and his shield, and the tiny, frail, omnipotent god they flanked. Just as the carvings under the church had depicted.

The tremors that had wracked the world upon its axis were Lexaeus’s once more, the ice that had choked out all but the lowest lives were Vexen’s once more, and the void that promised to devour anything that wandered too close was Zexion’s again.

Ansem’s face warped further, the skin tearing and shredding from his skull as he fought against the noose in some attempt to retreat. But it was already far, far too late. 

The room began to shake anew, the quaking controlled and welcome. The walls and their horrible contents began to grow white with a cold more bitter than the storms raging above them. With a deep, warning _crack_ , the ground beneath the creature split open wide, birthing gargantuan stalagmites just as the monstrous icicles shot down from the arced ceiling. 

Almost in perfect unison, they pierced the monster’s form, driving spike after spike through its ravaged body until it seemed more pincushion than punisher. It gasped a wheezing, papery breath that might’ve been meant as a scream.

Throwing wide his arms, the lexicon shot from Zexion’s grasp, its pages open, fluttering, _hungry_. Perception and reality bent at the knees as it seemed to grow monumentally, opening wide like the maw of some greater beast. It slammed shut with a snap, devouring the fleshy abomination and the ends of the spears that had wrought it to the spot. Then, it fell to the ground, landing on the edge of the rift that had been opened by Lexaeus’s might.

And just like that, everything fell silent around them—the echoing screams, the clattering of loose rock, the strange disembodied pulsing of the hearts lining the walls. The room went still.

They stared at the lexicon as it lay before them, benign save for a fine powdering of dust. A long minute passed in that manner, the lot of them simply watching in case the creature burst forth from the pages once more. Finally, Zexion took a step forward, surprisingly devoid of any hint of hesitation.

He knelt down, picking his book up almost tenderly, flooded with relief at its familiar weight. As he stood back up, the world around them slowly began to melt away. The green glow of the room bled into something lighter, warmer, and the stone walls and their ghoulish inhabitants dissolved like spun sugar. Before their eyes, the cramped antechamber of the historical society took shape once more.

They watched in quiet acceptance as, in the place the locked door had once stood, a dark, swirling void opened in the air. A door to darkness. The RTC point. Almost in unison their bodies sagged, awash in relief, in exhaustion. 

Still, no one made a move to approach it. The silence that stretched between them was more contemplative than fearful, but there was still a strain of tension in Vexen’s voice when finally he spoke. “What _on earth_ do we tell the Superior?” he asked for them all, putting words to the frenzy of thoughts that had consumed them as one.

“The truth.” When they turned to him, Zexion was staring calmly, if not _blankly_ , towards the portal, seeming to look somehow past it. “We found a dead world. It’s useless to us.” 

“And when VII doubts us?”

“And he _will_.”

Zexion exhaled slowly, for a moment looking very much like the tiny, wide-eyed child he had been a lifetime ago. “Then we suggest to him, very matter-of-factly, that _he_ is free to conduct his own reconnaissance.” There was a beat. “I even have an idea of who he might want to bring along as company.”

Lexaeus and Vexen exchanged a brief glance over Zexion’s head, but allowed the matter to rest. If and when push came to shove, the Superior would take Zexion’s word over Saïx’s. They trusted that much. After another long moment, they each went to take a step forward before being halted by a curt motion of Zexion’s arm.

He appeared to carefully consider what he would say next, mulling over each word silently behind tight lips. Finally, in the stillness of the room, he spoke. “This has been…an unconventional assignment. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all been forced to…” he pursed his lips faintly, “Come to terms with some difficult things. If there is anything— _anything_ —that anyone wishes to say about what’s happened here, I recommend that you say it _now_.” He paused, before continuing, “Because this will be the absolute _last_ time I will _ever_ acknowledge this mission. Am I understood?”

Between them, silence settled like dust from the ceiling. Once it became sufficiently thick, Lexaeus flipped up his hood and stepped soundlessly into the open rift, disappearing into the swirling darkness beyond. Zexion nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, and continued staring into the space just beyond, shoulders set. 

Reaching back, Vexen mimicked Lexaeus, pulling the hood of his cloak up and over the top half of his face, preparing for the much-anticipated return to their own world. But…pulled as he was towards the beckoning door home, he found himself riveted to the spot just in front of the threshold, boots suddenly feeling as though made of lead. The words bubbled up the back of his throat, burning like acid, but he didn’t know if he had the strength to exorcise them from where they were festering in his chest. _We never blamed you_ , he thought of saying, the words a rushed jumble in his brain. _Not once. If anything, you’re the reason we were able to survive as long as we did. Why we’re here now_. There was silence behind him, and the words tumbling around in his mind felt hot and somehow shameful, as though uncovering some long-repressed trauma. But still he said nothing, fearing it would spill from his mouth like vomit, uncontrollable in its intensity and burning in its acidity. _Ansem failed you. But he wasn’t the only one._ “I’m sorry,” he said instead, voice low. His chest felt deceptively light, considering the smothering quiet between them.

They would put this mission behind them, in time. Soon it would scab over and heal, leaving little more than a faded mark in its place. They had come back from worse…But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t still ache. Without a word, Vexen stepped over the threshold and out of the world, bracing himself for the austere white gleam of the Grey Room’s walls and the soft sound of bootfalls behind him.


End file.
